Post Office IT firm Fujitsu reports £22m UK profits as directors receive payouts

Fujitsu, the technology company whose flawed Horizon IT system is at the heart of the Post Office scandal, has posted profits of £22m in its UK arm and paid out millions in salary and bonuses to directors, its latest accounts reveal.

The $30bn (£23.5bn) Japanese company designed the now infamous centralised accounting software, which gave the false impression that about 3,500 owner-operators in charge of sub-post offices had stolen money from the company.

As a result, about 700 were wrongly prosecuted. Dozens of the victims died before they could clear their names or claim compensation and the scandal has been linked to four suicides.

The Post Office, which is effectively owned by the government, has set aside £244m to compensate victims of the scandal, but Fujitsu has not faced any financial consequences and has continued to win lucrative taxpayer-funded contracts.

Accounts filed at Companies House on Monday show that Fujitsu’s UK arm recorded strong profits as a result of ongoing work for government departments such as the Home Office and Ministry of Defence, as well as for the Post Office itself, which continues to use a newer version of the Horizon system.

UK-based Fujitsu Services Ltd, which houses the Japanese firm’s UK and Irish businesses, posted pre-tax profits of £22m in 2022, on revenues of £1.3bn, the accounts show.

Its three directors shared pay of £2.3m, of which £1.3m was paid to one unnamed executive.

Separate accounts for Fujitsu’s European holding company, which also includes operations in Scandinavia and the Middle East, indicate that its directors were also paid bonuses.

Two directors of Fujitsu Services Holdings plc received share-based payouts as part of a “long-term incentive scheme”, a form of bonus that rewards executives for performance, typically over several years.

Details of Fujitsu’s performance in the UK emerged a day after peers called for greater scrutiny of its role in the Horizon affair, including the possibility that the Japanese company should pay compensation to victims of one of the largest miscarriages of justice in British history.

In a joint letter to the Sunday Times, Lord Falconer and Lord Abuthnot said the ongoing inquiry into the scandal “needs to examine in detail the role of Fujitsu, which provided and managed the faulty software. Was Fujitsu completely unaware of the devastating effect of its actions? Should it not contribute to the compensation claims of hundreds of sub-postmasters?”

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Fujitsu declined to answer questions about its accounts.

A spokesperson said: “The current Post Office Horizon IT statutory inquiry is examining complex events stretching back over 20 years to understand who knew what, when, and what they did with that knowledge.

“The inquiry has reinforced the devastating impact on postmasters’ lives and that of their families, and Fujitsu has apologised for its role in their suffering.

“Fujitsu is fully committed to supporting the inquiry in order to understand what happened and to learn from it. Out of respect for the inquiry process, it would be inappropriate for Fujitsu to comment further at this time.”