Famous reputation management and defamation legal company Carter-Ruck has disclosed that Daily Mail had stopped defending the false and defamatory accusations of corruption made in a report by David Rose against Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif several months ago.

Carter-Ruck announced in a statement on its website that Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) has realised it has no defence to back up its claims of corruption against PM Shehbaz in the Department for International Development (DFID).

The newspaper claimed that DFID's aid grant to Pakistan in 2005 was utilised to enrich Shahbaz Sharif and his son.

"Prime Minister Sharif filed legal procedures in January 2020 after The Mail/MailOnline failed to retract or apologise for the articles. "The Mail eventually acknowledged that it did not seek to defend the charges it had published regarding alleged misuse of British public money and DFID aid in its defence, which was served in February 2022," Carter-Ruck stated.

Carter-Ruck continued, "The Mail Online and the Mail on Sunday (published by Associated Newspapers) have apologised to the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shahbaz Sharif, in the statement, which is titled, "Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif of Pakistan secures apologies from The Mail on Sunday and Mail Online,"with the heading "Did the family of Pakistani politician who has become the poster boy for British international aid STEAL monies destined for disaster victims?" on July 14, 2019, over false and quite highly defamatory charges.

The company said that the claims of corruption were completely false and without any basis in reality.

"The articles included [wholly untrue] allegations that Prime Minister Sharif, while serving as Chief Minister of the Punjab province, embezzled British public funds that had been paid to the Punjab province in DFID grant aid intended for the victims of the devastating earthquake in Pakistan in 2005," the statement continued. These accusations, which Prime Minister Sharif feels were made for political reasons, have always been unequivocally refuted.

"The Mail has now offered a sincere apology to Prime Minister Sharif and agreed to take the internet item down permanently. Katherine Hooley, Antonia Foster, and Alasdair Pepper served as the prime minister's representatives.

Within a year of Shahbaz Sharif and Imran Ali Yousaf filing legal action against the newspaper, the publication began making offers of restitution and an apology.

PM Shehbaz Sharif's claim against the Daily Mail publication was defended by attorneys at Carter-Ruck.

A few weeks following the publishing of the defamatory piece, PM Shehbaz Sharif and Carter-Ruck attorneys held a joint press conference to announce legal action against the daily.

Son-in-law of Sharif PTI UK leader Waheed Ur Rehman Mian's law office represented Yousaf.

The Mail apologised to PM Shehbaz online on Thursday and after that day took the David Rose story down from its website.

In accordance with the agreement to apologise both online and in print editions following the removal of Rose's false and defamatory article from circulation worldwide, Britain's largest-circulation Mail on Sunday (MoS) newspaper published an additional apology to Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif in one million print editions on Sunday.

According to the agreement, ANL would apologise online (on December 8, 2022) and then print the same apology the next Sunday, the printed apology was available in print at hundreds of supermarkets and news agencies around the UK (December 11, 2022).