PO Scandal: What would happen if Fujitsu enforced employment NDAs? By Tristam Price

IT Engineer Richard Roll broke his silence nearly nine years ago as per this article by Nick Wallis, author of The Great Post Office Scandal.

Horizon IT Whistleblower: “It was widely accepted that the system was crap” – December 2023

As far as we know, Roll left Fujitsu under unremarkable circumstances and was not subject to a post-employment non-disclosure agreement (NDA) of the type usually created in mediation to resolve a grievance or other dispute, and where the employer often agrees to pay hush money.

But given the extraordinary lengths Fujitsu’s valued customer UK government-owned Post Office Limited went to, to cover up serious wrongdoing, we’re surprised that more Fujitsu whistleblowers haven’t come out of the woodwork especially in the wake of the ITV mini-series Mr Bates vs The Post Office which screened in early January 2024.

The serious wrongdoing we refer to was the hiding of evidence that would have prevented hundreds of innocent subpostmasters (franchisees) from being prosecuted for phantom accounting shortfalls, by underqualified, bonus-chasing Post Office investigators.  It was already well known to Post Office management that the appearance of shortfalls was caused by faulty software.  For example, when subpostmasters called the Post Office helpline with concerns about these unexplained shortfalls, they were told that they were the only branch experiencing this problem.

While no criminal charges have yet been laid against Post Office investigators, lawyers or executives, we believe that prison sentences for perverting the course of justice, and perjury, are inevitable.  In the meantime, fewer than 100 unsafe convictions against subpostmasters have been quashed, and very little compensation has yet been paid, although there may be moves to fast track those processes by way of emergency legislation.  Slopey-shouldered witnesses are still being paraded through the long-running Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, chaired by Sir Wyn Williams.  Many witnesses are now retired, but one, former investigator Stephen Bradshaw, is still employed by Post Office Limited.

In the late 1990s Fujitsu successfully tendered for the Post Office supply contract and around 1999 it started rolling out its Horizon retail and accounting software, installed on branch computers.

As major IT projects go, Horizon was a dog, and problems started immediately.  Unfortunately for Fujitsu, its customer’s insistence that subpostmasters were liable for losses, and failure to disclose let alone properly investigate an absurdly high number of shortfalls being reported (for which the subpostmasters were then found to be civilly and/or criminally liable), denied Fujitsu the opportunity to fix its faulty software.  For years, Post Office Limited swore black and blue that Horizon was robust.  That did not align with Fujitsu insiders, who were responsible for developing and maintaining the software.  Like IT engineer Richard Roll, who worked on Horizon from 2001 to 2004, and was among the first to break his silence after arranging a meeting with journalist Nick Wallis.

Second Sight, a forensic accounting and auditing firm that was brought in by Post Office Limited, then sacked when it “got too close to discovering the truth”, was subject to an NDA, albeit one that’s fairly standard in commercial relationships.  In 2022 co-founder Ian Henderson sought, and received an assurance that the NDA that bound him would be set aside for the purpose of giving evidence at the Inquiry.

Henderson went on to say of former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells’ performance at a parliamentary select committee, “She’s lying” (skip to 5.31).  In January 2024 Vennells turned in her CBE, amid calls for her to be stripped of it (and then some).

Against the backdrop of the Post Office cover-up that spanned several years until around 2019, we would expect that departing Fujitsu employees would have been pressured into signing NDAs based on what they knew, how the employment relationship ended, and Fujitsu’s relationship with Post Office Limited at the time.

Commercial organisations all over the world value NDAs in certain circumstances, as a way to protect themselves from reputational harm caused by disgruntled former employees.  Reputational harm could lead to loss of market share, which leads to loss of profits, and signing a contract that includes agreeing to pay out a departing employee along with the associated legal fees could be considered to be just the cost of doing business.

But what if that contract drafted by a lawyer is strongly suspected to be an instrument of fraud?

We’d be surprised if Fujitsu wasn’t a party to a few of those!

If a large multinational sues a former employee for breaching their NDA, in relation to scandalous but truthful information provided to a statutory inquiry or even media, what’s going to happen to Fujitsu’s name and reputation in a competitive market?

Exactly.

See also: Secret 2013 Post Office recordings are not leaks. They're disclosures. (8 April 2024, 2 minutes to read)