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Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have officially shut down their Sussex Royal charity.
The couple have filed official paperwork with Companies House to dissolve the royal foundation as they shift their focus to the Prince’s eco-tourism scheme ‘Travalyst’, reports suggest.
The company – which has been set up independently – hopes to help the hard-hit tourism industry survive the coronavirus crisis.
The couple’s move to disband their charitable organisation follows the Queen’s decision that Harry and Meghan can no longer use the word ‘royal’ in their ‘branding’.
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have officially shut down their Sussex Royal charity, reports suggest
The couple are said to have filed official paperwork with Companies House to dissolve the royal foundation as the couple shift their focus to the Prince’s eco-tourism scheme ‘Travalyst’ (Prince Harry pictured announcing the scheme last year)
An insider told Newsweek: ‘Following previous announcements that The Duke and Duchess will not be using the name ‘Sussex Royal’ and will not continue with a foundation in its name, paperwork has been filed with Companies House and the Charity Commission to formally close the charity down.
‘This will appear on the online public record in the coming days. The charity formally enters a period of “solvent liquidation”.’
It is claimed the couple, who quit the royal family earlier this year, want to concentrate on new ventures going forward.
This includes Travalyst, led by The Duke of Sussex, which brought together some of the biggest operators in the travel industry – including Visa, Booking.com and Skyscanner – to help travellers pick low carbon options more easily and chose destinations that will have more benefit to local communities.
The couple’s move to disband their charitable organisation follows the Queen’s decision that Harry and Meghan can no longer use the word ‘royal’ in their ‘branding’
Harry and Meghan first began using the Sussex Royal branding in 2019, after they split their household from that of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge – known as Kensington Royal. They set up the charitable organisation called Sussex Royal, The Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, as well as their website (pictured)
After the travel and tourism industry was hard-hit during the coronavirus crisis, Travalyst now hopes to help rebuild the sector with long-term goals in mind.
Harry and Meghan first began using the Sussex Royal branding in 2019, after they split their household from that of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge – known as Kensington Royal.
In this transition, they set up the charitable organisation: Sussex Royal, The Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
But after the couple decided to step down as working royals and move to North America, officials made the decision that the Sussex Royal title would still need to be re-evaluated.
A statement they released at the time struck a more hostile tone in some sections, and said that neither the government nor the Queen herself own the word ‘royal’ internationally – but they would nonetheless stop using the title.
The statement read: ‘While there is not any jurisdiction by The Monarchy or Cabinet Office over the use of the word “Royal” overseas, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex do not intend to use “Sussex Royal” or any iteration of the word “Royal” in any territory (either within the UK or otherwise) when the transition occurs Spring 2020.’
It was revealed this week that Meghan felt ‘unprotected’ by the Royal ‘institution’ because it could not defend her against stories in the press that angered her but were true, sources have claimed.
In papers filed in the High Court, Meghan’s lawyers said press coverage of her while she was pregnant damaged her mental health.
The documents also say she was ‘unprotected by the institution and prohibited from defending herself’.
A source confirmed to The Times that this referred to the team of press officers and wider office staff at the Palace.
Officials will often refuse to comment to journalists when an on-the-record reply would confirm a story or damage the royal family member involved.
That paper reported one case that had angered the Duchess involved the resignation of her PA Melissa Toubati, who quit in 2018 amid rumours she had been reduced to tears by Meghan’s demands.
The Kensington Palace press team had difficulty in denying the stories, because they were true, The Times said.
‘The stories were a drop in the ocean compared to what was going on,’ another source said.
But Meghan’s legal papers say she ‘become the subject of a large number of false and damaging articles’ in UK newspapers, which caused ‘tremendous emotional distress and damage to her mental health’.
They add: ‘As her friends had never seen her in this state before, they were rightly concerned for her welfare, specifically as she was pregnant, unprotected by the Institution, and prohibited from defending herself.’
The claims raise the prospect that staff from the Royal Household could be called to give evidence in the High Court, laying bare the inner workings of Kensington Palace.
Meghan is suing MailOnline’s owner Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) over an article in The Mail On Sunday that shared parts of a handwritten note she had sent to her father Thomas Markle in August 2018. She claims publication was a breach of her privacy; the newspaper denies the claim.
ANL has said Mr Markle shared the letter only after Meghan’s friends – who could be called to give evidence at a possible trial in late 2020 or early 2021 – gave an interview about it to the US magazine People, which he felt vilified him, and he wanted to show it was not the tender message they had suggested.
New legal documents showed that Meghan has now identified the five friends – who spoke anonymously – with the papers just referring to them as A, B, C, D and E, although she named them in a confidential section.
The friends have never been named, with People magazine previously referring to them as ‘Meghan’s inner circle – a longtime friend, a former co-star, a friend from LA, a one-time colleague and a close confidante’.
The five close friends could be called to testify at a trial and be asked if Meghan knew they were speaking to the magazine, something she firmly denies in the documents, which are a response to questions raised by ANL.
Her lawyers add in the new court filing that Meghan ‘discussed with Friend A that she was writing a letter to her father at the time of penning it’, which was seven months before the article was published in People in February 2019.
The submissions added that the Duchess and Friend A talked about the existence of the letter, but not its contents, again in September and December 2018, as Mr Markle ‘continued to give interviews to UK media falsely claiming he had not heard from his daughter’.
Meghan added that she ‘did not know about the interview having been given, and only found out about it, and any reference to the Letter, after the People magazine article was published’.
The Duchess also said that she found out that an article about her was due to appear just before it was published, but she did not know it would be in People or anything about its contents.
Any court trial is expected to focus on whether Meghan had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of the letter to her father, given that her friends had already briefed People magazine about its contents, and whether publishing parts of the letter was in the public interest and allowed under freedom of expression laws.
Meghan’s legal team said that ‘Friend A’ spoke anonymously to People and made a ‘passing reference to the letter’, adding that the Duchess did not know Friend A gave the interview because she was not involved with it.
Her lawyers add in the new court filing that Meghan ‘discussed with Friend A that she was writing a letter to her father at the time of penning it’, which was seven months before the article was published in People in February 2019.
The submissions added that the Duchess and Friend A talked about the existence of the letter, but not its contents, again in September and December 2018, as Mr Markle ‘continued to give interviews to UK media falsely claiming he had not heard from his daughter’.
Meghan added that she ‘did not know about the interview having been given, and only found out about it, and any reference to the Letter, after the People magazine article was published’.
The Duchess also said that she found out that an article about her was due to appear just before it was published, but she did not know it would be in People or anything about its contents.
Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex are seen with their son Archie in September last year
Meghan Markle is suing Associated Newspapers Limited over an article in The Mail On Sunday which reproduced parts of a handwritten note she had sent to her father Thomas Markle (pictured together) in August 2018
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