Hugh Grant settles phone-hacking case
(CNN) — Hugh Grant has settled a phone-hacking case against British media company Mirror Group Newspapers.
In a statement to CNN, Grant says he will donate the full undisclosed amount of damages to Hacked Off, a free-press campaign that formed in 2011 after the UK’s News of the World was accused of hacking the phones of politicians and celebrities, including Grant.
This new settlement between Grant and Mirror Group Newspapers, which owns the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, comes after the company admitted all three newspapers had hacked into his voicemails.
“This litigation has made clear that phone-hacking and other unlawful information-gathering took place on an industrial scale at the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People,” Grant said in a statement.
A spokesman for Trinity Mirror plc, owner of Mirror Group Newspapers, said there would be no comment in response to the settlement agreement.
Related: Hugh Grant: British newspapers are like ‘mafia families’
In an interview with CNN in 2016, Grant said he found it deplorable that certain publications (which he did not name) “live above the law,” using unethical tactics to obtain stories.
“It’s hard to explain to Americans because you don’t have the same situation here for various historical reasons,” he said. “Some newspapers in Britain have become closer to these kind of mafia families. They wield an incredible power. They choose our governments, they choose our prime ministers and they live above the law.”
The-CNN-Wire
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