Meghan Markle wins court battle to keep names of her friends private

London's High Court on Wednesday ruled that names of  Meghan Markle  five friends could not be published for the moment as part of her legal action against a British tabloid which she accuses of invading her privacy.

Meghan is suing Associated Newspapers over articles in the Mail on Sunday that included parts of a handwritten letter she had sent to her estranged father, Thomas Markle, in August 2018.

As part of its defence, the paper argues that it published the letter in Feb. 2019 after five of Meghan’s friends gave anonymous interviews to the U.S. magazine People.

The duchess argues that she did not authorise her friends to speak to People and that the Mail on Sunday only wanted to name them to exploit the legal dispute for commercial reasons. She says naming them would pose a threat to their “emotional and mental wellbeing”.

Judge Mark Warby ruled at London’s High Court that their names could not be published for the moment, but that this could change.

“I have concluded that for the time being at least the Court should grant the claimant the orders she seeks, the effect of which will be to confer protection on the sources’ identities,” he said.