The former UK boss of Fujitsu, the technology firm whose flawed IT system is at the heart of the Post Office Horizon scandal, received a £2.6m payoff after standing down from the company in 2019, corporate filings suggest.
Fujitsu has come under increasing scrutiny during the public inquiry into the Horizon scandal, which led to thousands of people who owned and ran smaller post offices being falsely accused or convicted of theft or fraud between 1999 and 2015.
Amid growing anger at the widespread miscarriage of justice, campaigners and politicians, including the justice minister, Alex Chalk, have suggested that Fujitsu should face financial consequences for its role in designing the Horizon system.
Earlier this week, the Guardian revealed that the company’s UK arm had paid out millions in salaries and share bonuses to directors last year, after reporting £22m in profits thanks in part to major government contracts.
New analysis of corporate filings suggests that Fujitsu also made a £2.6m farewell payment to the head of its UK & Ireland division in 2020.
The payment was made even as Fujitsu’s failings emerged during successive court cases brought by former post office operators seeking to clear their names.
Accounts for the technology company’s UK and Ireland division, Fujitsu Services Limited, show that one director received £2.6m “compensation for loss of office” in the year to the end of March 2020, after their resignation.
The disclosure is understood to refer to Duncan Tait, who joined Fujitsu in 2009 and rose to become the first non-Japanese person to sit on the Tokyo-based group’s board.
Tait ran the company’s UK & Ireland business between 2011 and 2014 before being promoted to oversee Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas regions.
He resigned from Fujitsu in July 2019 and is understood to be the director referred to in the accounts for 2020, a year in which the business doubled its pre-tax profit to £32.7m.
Filings from the previous year show that the company’s highest-paid director, likely to have been Tait, was paid an annual salary of £2.5m.
Fujitsu declined to comment on the terms of the payment or say why Tait had left the company.
Less than a year after leaving Fujitsu, he was appointed chief executive of the car dealership business Inchcape, whose annual report lists his remuneration for 2022 as £4m, after a £3.2m bonus.
When contacted by the Guardian, Tait said: “I am appalled by the harsh treatment of the subpostmasters and fully support the public inquiry. It would be inappropriate for me to comment ahead of this.”
He declined to comment on the terms of the payment he received upon leaving Fujitsu.
Tait’s successor, Paul Patterson, is due to give evidence to the Horizon inquiry on 19 January. However, Tait has not been called to give evidence.
Fujitsu’s UK arm has continued to report sizeable profits, due in part to the ongoing award of major government contracts, including for the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office.
The UK division posted of profits of £22m last year, the Guardian revealed earlier this week. It also paid out millions in salary and bonuses to directors.
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.
