Pension black hole rocks Horizon IT firm Fujitsu

Fujitsu, whose faulty Horizon software is at the centre of the Post Office scandal, was thrown deeper into crisis this weekend after it was forced to earmark more than £500 million to plug a black hole in its main UK pension fund, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

To add to its woes, Fujitsu’s UK arm also plunged into a £99 million loss last year, despite continuing to win taxpayer-funded contracts, including a £36 million deal to extend Horizon’s use until spring 2025.

It comes as pressure grows on the Japanese technology giant to compensate victims of what has been described as the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history.

Accounts filed on Friday at Companies House also show that unlike the Post Office, Fujitsu has not set aside or paid any money to compensate victims of the Horizon fiasco because no legal action has been taken against it so far.

The documents also revealed it has had to pump another £40 million into British computer firm ICL’s ‘gold-plated’ pension scheme, where there is a huge shortfall which last year ballooned to £339 million.

Under pressure: Fujitsu designed the bug-riddled Horizon IT system which falsely showed that thousands of sub-post office branch managers had stolen money

Fujitsu designed the bug-riddled Horizon IT system which falsely showed that thousands of sub-post office branch managers had stolen money.

The Government last week said it would use emergency legislation to overturn convictions against more than 900 sub-postmasters who were wrongly accused of stealing from the Post Office.

It also offered to pay £75,000 compensation to those who were pursued by the Post Office and ordered to hand cash back, but were never convicted.

Ministers have urged Fujitsu to repay taxpayers for the ‘fortune’ the scandal has already cost the public purse.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faces calls to bar it from securing government contracts.

Fujitsu bought ICL in 1998 just before the Horizon system was rolled out into thousands of Post Offices up and down the country. As part of the deal, the Japanese tech company took on the liabilities of the ICL pension scheme, which has 9,000 mostly retired members, many of whom will have worked on the Horizon project. The scheme pays a guaranteed retirement income but it is no longer open to new members.

Fujitsu has committed to paying out a total £504 million in the decade to 2032 to fill the gap.

Despite the black hole growing deeper last year, the ICL trustees who oversee the pension scheme expect the £3.3 billion plan to be back on track by January 2027.

This, if they are right, would potentially free up millions to compensate Horizon victims. However, it is not clear why the trustees think the gap can be closed earlier than planned.

‘I believe Fujitsu should urgently set aside money to pay compensation to the Post Office scandal victims and I wish they had done so already,’ said former pensions minister Baroness Altmann.

‘It is astonishing that they seem to believe they have no liability whatever for what happened. Even if contractually they might be receiving advice that they aren’t liable, surely they should be considering their responsibility and moral obligations as well.’

But she warned against using compensation ‘as an excuse to short change’ members of the pension scheme. MPs will quiz Paul Patterson, Fujitsu’s UK boss, about the Horizon scandal on Tuesday. Patterson is also due to appear before the statutory inquiry chaired by former High Court judge Sir Wyn Williams next week.

It follows ITV’s acclaimed drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, which charts the long-running campaign for justice led by former sub-postmaster Alan Bates.

When the sub-postmasters won their legal action in December 2019, High Court Judge Sir Peter Fraser voiced ‘grave concerns’ about Fujitsu’s honesty.

He said that, ‘in the interests of justice’, he would send evidence heard in court to the then Director of Public Prosecutions. Fujitsu did not apologise until September 2022 – 18 months after the convictions of 39 innocent sub-postmasters had been quashed. Since 2019, the group has picked up £4.9 billion in Government contracts.

Fujitsu declined to comment on its plans to repair the growing pension fund gap.