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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/span><\/p>\n The head of the UK arm of Fujitsu, the technology group at the centre of the Post Office Horizon scandal, received a 50 per cent pay rise last year as its parent company injected fresh capital to offset falling orders and reputational damage.<\/p>\n Accounts for UK-based Fujitsu Services, a subsidiary of the Japanese IT services company, show its highest-paid director \u2014 understood to be UK head Anwen Owen \u2014 earned \u00a3591,000 in the year to March 2025, up from \u00a3388,000 a year earlier. Owen, a former senior civil servant who joined the UK company\u2019s board in 2022, previously held roles at the Treasury and Cabinet Office.<\/p>\n According to the accounts, Fujitsu\u2019s parent injected \u00a380mn into the business to \u201cstrengthen the balance sheet\u201d and support operations, following a \u00a3200mn capital infusion the previous year. <\/p>\n Revenues fell 9.2 per cent to almost \u00a31.1bn, while profit recovered to \u00a315mn from a loss the year before. However, the company\u2019s order pipeline contracted by a fifth to \u00a3904mn, with management warning that the \u201closs of future new business due to reputational damage arising from the Horizon inquiry remains a key risk\u201d.<\/p>\n More than 900 sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 due to faults in the Horizon computer system, which was developed by Fujitsu and falsely showed accounting shortfalls. More than 230 sub-postmasters were jailed, and at least 13 are believed to have taken their own lives.<\/p>\n In its latest filings, Fujitsu said it \u201ccontinues to support the inquiry process until its conclusion\u201d and is \u201cengaging in discussions with the UK government regarding an appropriate and proportionate contribution\u201d to compensation for victims. <\/p>\n The company said ahead of the inquiry\u2019s final findings, \u201cit is not possible to estimate the amount of a future financial contribution\u201d and therefore no provision has been made in its balance sheet.<\/p>\n The pay rise and cash injection were first reported by the Times and the Sunday Telegraph.<\/p>\n Fujitsu has suspended bidding for UK government contracts until the conclusion of the public inquiry into the Horizon system. <\/p>\n The company told the Financial Times that it continued to work with the government \u201cto ensure we adhere to the voluntary restrictions we put in place regarding bidding for new contracts\u201d and was \u201cengaged with\u00a0government regarding Fujitsu\u2019s contribution to compensation\u201d.<\/p>\n It added that \u201c<\/em>improved operating margins and the successful delivery of strategic cost reduction measures\u201d had helped boost pre-tax profits. <\/p>\n \u201cWe remain focused on supporting our UK customers, through the delivery of innovative IT services and solutions,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n The UK government last week pledged to improve the compensation schemes for victims of the Horizon scandal. Business secretary Peter Kyle said ministers would create an appeals process for sub-postmasters who accepted fixed-sum payments under earlier settlements, allowing them to pursue full, evidence-based redress.<\/p>\n The first report of the public inquiry, released in July, found that both Post Office and Fujitsu employees were aware of serious flaws in the Horizon system but \u201cmaintained the fiction\u201d that it was reliable. The government has accepted all but one of the inquiry\u2019s 19 recommendations, including proposals for an independent body to oversee redress in future cases.<\/p>\n Fujitsu\u2019s accounts also disclose a \u00a34mn damages claim filed by a former sub-postmaster in July. Fujitsu does not identify the claimant, but media reports have linked the case to Lee Castleton, whose story featured in ITV\u2019s Mr Bates vs the Post Office<\/em>. The company said it was \u201cnot yet possible to predict the outcome\u201d of the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The head of the UK arm of Fujitsu, the technology group at the centre of the Post Office Horizon scandal, received a 50 per cent pay rise last year as its parent company injected fresh<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[1120,2071,154,1008,1040,1105,313,2963],"class_list":{"0":"post-27569","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-boss","9":"tag-company","10":"tag-linked","11":"tag-office","12":"tag-pay","13":"tag-post","14":"tag-rise","15":"tag-scandal"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}