Prince Harry and six other claimants suing a major U.K. publisher have been warned about the legal costs as their trial nears.

The Duke of Sussex, 41, is currently pursuing a lawsuit against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), the publisher of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday. Along with six other claimants — including actresses Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, as well as Elton John and his husband, David Furnish — Harry is seeking restitution over claims that ANL’s papers used illegal methods, like phone hacking and bugging calls, to gather information about their subjects.

ANL has denied all claims in the case as “lurid” and “simply preposterous.”

However, as the case prepares to go to trial in the new year, two judges issued a statement on Tuesday, Dec. 9, warning the claimants to have the “clearest possible understanding” about the penalties they may face if they lose the case, The Telegraph reported.

“It is particularly important that this issue is addressed at this point as substantial costs have already been incurred and the parties will soon be incurring more substantial costs in preparation for the trial next year,” Judge David Cook and Mr. Justice Nicklin said in their judgment.

Judge Cook went on to explain that, “The claimants’ cases depend not merely on them bringing the same central case based on the similar fact and generic cases, but also on each individual claimants’ own specific case being said to cross-support each of the other claimants’ cases and the collective case as a whole.”

Elton John chats with Prince Harry at the launch of the Menstar Coalition in Amsterdam in 2018.Michael Kovac/Getty

The way the case is being structured could lead to multiple possible outcomes. All seven claimants could win their case against ANL, all seven could lose or some could win while others lose.

Any losing claimants will be responsible for ANL’s legal costs, which are estimated to be in the millions of pounds for the high-profile trial.

The Telegraph reported that the seven claimants have been insured as a group for nearly $19 million, with each claimant also obtaining an individual policy of just over $3 million. However, the judges are now concerned that this may not be enough if some claimants lose or drop out of the case.

“If that means the individual claimants need to reassess their ATE [After The Event insurance] cover that can only be in their own best interests,” they said in their statement.

In addition to the household names, the group of claimants includes Baroness Doreen Lawrence, who has led a decades-long crusade for justice after the 1993 murder of her teenage son, Stephen Lawrence. Also involved is Sir Simon Hughes, a former politician who came out as bisexual in 2006 after an investigation by The Sun confronted him with evidence that he had phoned a gay chat line.

This week’s judges’ warning is just the latest snag in the phone-hacking case. Last month, private investigator Gavin Burrows, who was linked to some of the most serious claims of information gathering, said that a witness statement he previously gave in the case was forged without his knowledge.

In a statement to ANL’s lawyers released on Nov. 11, Burrows said, “I do not [recognize] the earlier witness statement of August 16, 2021, and I believe that my signature on that document is a forgery. A lot of it is not written in my type of language.”

“Further, the contents of the statement are substantially untrue,” he added.

Burrows also said that he had not carried out any illegal work for the Mail on Sunday or the Daily Mail. In his 2021 witness statement, he stated that he and his team obtained information by tapping landline phones, bugging cars and hacking voicemails on behalf of the Mail on Sunday, The Guardian reported.

His claims about tapping the landline of Prince Harry’s close friend, Guy Pelly, to gather information about the Duke of Sussex’s former girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, motivated the prince to pursue the lawsuit, according to Harry’s own witness statement.

Lawyer David Sherborne, who is representing the group of high-profile names suing the publisher, told the court on Nov. 10 that Burrows’ new witness statement was “scurrilous” and “a grotesque inclusion which is meant to be an attack on parts of the legal team,” which “should not be permitted,” the outlet stated.

“This is open justice, Mr. Sherborne,” the judge responded, per The Times.