(Adds background, trading update)
LONDON, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Britain's Trinity Mirror lost its legal bid on Thursday to reduce the amount ofcompensation it must pay eight people who had their phoneshacked by staff working for the newspaper group, potentiallyopening it up to higher payouts in future.
The owner of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror tabloids hadappealed a ruling ordering it to pay 1.2 million pounds ($1.8million) in damages to the victims, a much higher sum than thoseawarded to other claimants in earlier out-of-court settlements.
In response to the failed appeal, Trinity said it intendedto take the matter to the Supreme Court. It also raised itsprovision for phone-hacking charges to 41 million pounds from 28million.
The hacking scandal erupted in 2011 when it was revealedthat some staff at Rupert Murdoch's News of the World tabloidhad routinely listened to private voicemail messages, includingthose of a murdered schoolgirl.
Murdoch shut down the 168-year-old paper and police launcheda wide investigation into phone-hacking and other suspectedillegal practices, a probe that later spread to the TrinityMirror newspapers.
The British prosecutor said last week it would take nofurther criminal action against Murdoch's News UK or 10 TrinityMirror journalists, bringing an end to one of the biggestscandals in British journalism.
But the Appeal Court ruling against Trinity on Thursdayraises the possibility of more civil cases coming to court aspotential defendants see the size of awards judges are nowlikely to make.
The case of the Trinity Mirror damages was the first timethat a civil lawsuit related to phone-hacking had been decidedby a judge, compared with previous damages claims that weresettled out of court.
The victims awarded damages were actress Sadie Frost,retired footballer Paul Gascoigne, BBC staffer Alan Yentob,three TV soap opera actors, a TV producer and a flight attendantwho had dated former England footballer Rio Ferdinand.
Frost was awarded 260,250 pounds and Gascoigne 188,250pounds. According to the BBC, the compensation far exceeded theprevious record for a UK privacy case - the 60,000 pounds theNews of the World was ordered to pay former Formula 1 boss MaxMosley in 2008.
Shares in Trinity had fallen by around 2 percent on thenews, however they recovered slightly after the company releaseda trading update saying the board now expected its performancefor the year to be marginally ahead of forecasts. At midday itsshares were down 1 percent. (Reporting by Kate Holton; editing by Stephen Addison)