"Accounts filed by the UK subsidiary Fujitsu Services Limited last week show that its Japanese owner, Fujitsu Services Holdings PLC, propped up the business with "an equity investment of £80 million... to strengthen the Company's Balance Sheet to meet its ongoing operational funding and capital requirements.""
"The Post Office began rolling out the legacy Horizon IT system for accounting in 1999, along with two subsequent upgrades. The EPOS and back-end finance system was first implemented by ICL, a UK tech firm majority-owned by Fujitsu in the 1990s and fully acquired in 1998. From 1999 until 2015, around 736 subpostmasters were wrongfully prosecuted and convicted over Horizon errors, devastating lives in the process."
"A statutory inquiry into the mass miscarriage of justice launched in 2021 is ongoing. Its first report was published in July, finding that senior Post Office staff in the UK - and those working for suppliers Fujitsu and ICL - knew or should have known about the defects causing errors in the Horizon system. It also found that 13 lives were lost through suicide, most likely as a result of the Post Office prosecutions, in which Fujitsu assisted."
Fujitsu's UK business received £280 million in equity from its Japanese owner over two years—£200 million last year and £80 million recently—to meet operational funding, strengthen the balance sheet and reduce debt. Fujitsu Services Limited reported revenue for the year ending March 2025 fell 9.2% to £1.06 billion. The company built the Horizon systems used by the Post Office and branch managers for accounting and sales. From 1999 to 2015 around 736 subpostmasters were wrongfully prosecuted due to Horizon errors. A statutory inquiry found senior Post Office staff and suppliers Fujitsu and ICL knew or should have known about defects, and identified 13 suicides linked to prosecutions. Fujitsu has not yet contributed to the government compensation scheme.
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