Earl Spencer and his former wife, Caroline, are in secret talks to try to settle their dispute over money within hours of losing a battle to ban the press from a bitter High Court fight.

The court dispute was due to last at least a week, with legal teams on each side arguing over how much of Lord Spencer’s fortune should go to his former wife.

The 41-year-old former countess was granted a “quickie” decree nisi from Lord Spencer, 45, in March 2007, ending their six-year marriage because of his “unreasonable behaviour”.

But in the first test of reforms that allow the media into family courts, Mr Justice Munby on Tuesday ruled against a joint application by both sides that there should be a blanket ban on the press being in court, to protect the couple’s human rights.

The judge said that he had to weigh up their right to privacy and a fair trial under the European Convention on Human Rights against the freedom-of-expression rights of the media.

Under rules that came into force in April, the media are allowed to sit in on family court hearings. The case is the first high-profile dispute to test those provisions.

After failing to secure a blanket ban, the former countess was planning to seek an order to stop reporting of many of the details that might be divulged in court.

But instead her counsel, Lewis Marks QC, asked the judge to adjourn the case, saying it might or might not return.

The judge agreed to the adjournment but said it should not be “magicked away” or left “hanging in the air” with the media “left in a situation of bemusement”.

Neither party was in court yesterday. The former countess is represented by one of the most tenacious divorce lawyers in London, Helen Ward of Manches, who has represented Bernie Ecclestone, Lord Lloyd-Webber and Guy Ritchie.

Mr Marks had argued that the press should be excluded because the only matters being canvassed dealt with the private rights of the couple and their children.

Another top divorce lawyer, Nicholas Mostyn, QC, represents Lord Spencer. He battled on behalf of Sir Paul McCartney in his divorce and helped Karen Parlour to secure half of the future earnings of her former husband, the Arsenal footballer Ray Parlour, in a groundbreaking judgment.

In a case listed by number only, FD06D04962, and no name, the judge rejected claims that justice would be “impeded or prejudiced” if the media were admitted.

The couple had claimed that they had had an expectation of privacy, as their proceedings had started before the rule change, he said.

The judge said that while he was “sympathetic at their grievance of injustice that the goalposts had been moved halfway through their litigation, I have to take the law as it is”.

He said the case was a “fairly routine big-money case” with no legal principle at stake or any complexity.

He had to decide it on the “needs” of the former countess in providing a home for herself and the two children, aged 5 and 3.

If the case is discontinued or settled on agreed terms the media may never know the amount of money involved.

Mr Justice Munby, refusing the ban, said: “That is dangerous territory because it potentially gives privilege to one group in the community over and above others.”

He said it would mean one law for celebrities and “another law for those who live their lives in tranquillity and anonymity”.

When the case resumed there was a joint application for an adjournment. “It might be that we shall not have to resume the hearing at all,” Mr Marks told the judge.

Mr Justice Munby sat in silence for a while before saying: “I am slightly puzzled.”

He said some might see what they were asking “as an attempt to circumvent the procedure laid down in the new rules” for media coverage.

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