A setback for Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. The much-discussed biography Finding Freedom may be used in the case she filed against publishing house Associated Newspapers, the High Court in London ruled on Tuesday.

Meghan sued the publisher because the Mail on Sunday newspaper published a “confidential, personal” handwritten letter to her estranged father Thomas Markle last February.

In doing so, Mail on Sunday and MailOnline violated Meghan’s privacy, the duchess stated in court documents. The tabloids were campaigning “to publish false and deliberately demeaning stories about her”, according to Meghan.

Parts of that letter are also in the book Finding Freedom, which appeared in August.

Although Meghan and her husband Prince Harry deny it, there are persistent rumours that the couple collaborated on the book. Associated Newspapers then stated that the Sussexes wanted to make the letter public by collaborating on the book.

According to the High Court, the contents of the book cannot be considered “indisputable or completely imaginative”. The case will be dealt with substantively from 11 January. That will take about ten days.