The media specialist firm at the centre of the unsuccessful action brought by the Duke of Sussex and six other claimants against Associated Newspapers has ceased trading.
Founded in 2009 by former Carter-Ruck partner Mark Thomson, Thomson Heath Jenkins is jointly led by Thomson and partners James Heath and Emily Jenkins, while Thomson is the sole owner.
The firm is ranked tier three for reputation management by Legal 500, with Thomson a Hall of Famer and Heath a next-generation partner.
The firm played a leading role in the landmark press conduct trials of the mid-2010s, acting for clients including Sienna Miller, Keira Knightley, Naomi Campbell and Lily Allen in privacy and harassment cases against defendants including News of the World and the Mirror Group.
The cease in trading follows the firm’s role in the unsuccessful privacy action brought against Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Daily Mail, by the Duke of Sussex and six other celebrity co-claimants.
The firm represented Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Elizabeth Hurley, Sir Simon Hughes, Sir Elton John, and David Furnish, with a team led by Thomson.
The Duke of Sussex was represented by Sheridans Solicitors.
The court dismissed the claims in the summer, with Mr Justice Nicklin writing that the allegations were ‘speculative’ and ‘substantially inferential.’
The following month the court approved Associated Newspapers’ requests for indemnity costs, finding that the claims and the manner in which they had been pursued ‘involved a combination of circumstances and conduct which took the litigation outside the ordinary and reasonable conduct of civil proceedings.’
The judge wrote: ‘the pleadings were inadequate and unparticularised from the outset, the claims were weak, the case was broad and scattergun, and the defendant and interested parties had been required to incur substantial costs in preparing to meet allegations which were later abandoned or changed.’
The claimants are now on the hook for Associated’s legal costs, which could reach up to £34.5m. They were ordered to pay an initial interim cost of £9,544,355 by 28 August 2026.
Thomson Heath Jenkins did not respond to request for comment.
