Fujitsu is bracing up for litigation after being sued by former subpostmaster Lee Castleton OBE with more legal action expected, suggests a recent report.
According to Computer Weekly, Fujitsu has told its 5,000 UK staff not to delete, amend or alter any documents or communication relating to the Post Office, as it prepares for legal action.
According to sources close to the company, an instruction sent recently to all Fujitsu UK staff said they must preserve all documents related to its work with the Post Office.
Staff were told “not to alter, delete, discard, shred, purge, modify or destroy any documents” which are “related or potentially related in any way” to Fujitsu’s relationship with the Post Office.
“This signals that Fujitsu is preparing for further litigation following the damning Horizon scandal Public Inquiry revelations and the ongoing criminal investigations, conducted by The Metropolitan Police as part of Operation Olympos," the publication cited a statement from an anonymous source.
The report comes a week after it emerged that Castleton is suing Fujitsu and the Post Office for £4m in damages over the Horizon IT scandal. This is the first case brought directly by a victim of the Post Office scandal while there are more considering following Castleton’s example.
Michael Rudkin, former subpostmaster and victim of the scandal, said he is considering “taking a leaf out of Lee Castleton’s book”.
Rudkin and his wife Susan are currently fighting the Post Office for fair compensation, which he says is proving a “nightmare”.
In 2008, Rudkin was wrongly accused and was forced to pay £44,000 shortfall at his branch in Ibstock, Leicestershire.
He was suspended. Rudkin was reinstated three months later, but he said there were problems balancing the accounts. In 2009, after experiencing unexplained account shortfalls, his wife Susan, who worked at the branch, was prosecuted for theft.
She was convicted, received a 12-month suspended sentence, was ordered to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work and was placed on an electronically monitored curfew for six months. She has since had this wrongful conviction overturned.
Meanwhile, pressure is piling on Japanese tech firm Fujitsu to take accountability and contribute in compensation as well as in justice.
Government ministers are urging Fujitsu to begin immediate interim payouts to the roughly 10,000 victims currently awaiting redress after critics pointed out that the Japanese tech giant had "paid not one penny" for the "havoc and misery that it helped to cause".
It is mentioned in the Sir William's first report that Fujitsu employees were aware, even before rollout in 1999, that the system could produce false data. Horizon Online (2010) and its successor HNG-A (2017) – also Fujitsu-built – continued to be plagued by defects.
The inquiry finds that Horizon, designed and maintained by Fujitsu, produced persistent bugs and phantom shortfalls, yet both the Post Office and Fujitsu continued relying on its data to prosecute sub-postmasters.
The firm is expected to collaborate in crafting a restorative justice programme, including apologies, memorials, and support services and publicly outline its role in the initiative by October 31, 2025.