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GLO CONTINGENCY PLANNING GOVERNANCE
Finsbury Dials / Telephone Conference
4 July 2019 ; 16:30pm
Attendees: Ben Foat (BF), Andy Parsons (AP), Alan Watts (AW), Rodric Williams (RW), Angela Van-Den-Bogerd
(AVDB), Stuart Nesbit (SN), Melanie Corfield (MC), Catherine Hamilton (CH), Julie Thomas (JT), Patrick Bourke (PB),
Aimee Daughters (AD), Nick Beal (NB), Zoe Brauer (ZB), and Kate Emanuel (KE)
Apologies: Amanda Jones (AJ), Kirsten Massey (KM),
Agenda
1 Trial Updates
2 Individual Claimant Case Profiles
3 Settlement
4 ARA
5 Operational Impact
6
7
8
9
Stakeholder Activity
Resource Requirements
Costs Update
Agreed Actions
10 Next Meeting
11 A.O.B
1 Trial Updates
Horizon Issues Trial
¢ Closing submissions finished on 2 July
* General themes:
1. Claimant's closing — put forward case that they lacked information, there was poor disclosure
and Post Office has been secretive. Their closings tried to build a narrative that there is a lot
more Horizon negative information out there. Attempt was made at making a connection
between specific duplication bugs and the Jo Hamilton case. J.Fraser made it clear that he was
not going to get involved in or comment on the criminal cases.
* 2. Post Office closing — there are little stories about problems with horizon however these are
not representative of the whole system. Not enough evidence of bugs in the scale of this system
to find the system was entirely faulty.
e J.Fraser has indicated that a judgment won’t be passed down until after mid-September
¢ Counsel provided initial view of what the judgment might look like. This view has not changed
post closings.
e View still remains that the judgment is expected to be long and heavy on the facts and stories of
the claimants. Still unsure as to what the final finding will be however, neither party gave a full
definition of robustness and therefore J.Fraser has some room for interpretation.
Common Issues Appeal
¢ Appeal was filed 28 July with a letter expressing that Post Office would rather the appeal be
heard in front of three CoA judges.
¢ CoA granted application for amended grounds of appeal.
¢ CoA have written to HSF to confirm that Lord Justice Coulson will consider an oral hearing.
e Lord Justice Coulson indicated second half of September
Trials 3 & 4
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© On 2July, J.Fraser ordered that the Further Issues Trial scheduled to commence on 3 November
is to be vacated and listed to be heard commencing 2 March 2020.
* Directions for the Further Issues Trial will be made at a Case Management Conference 23 July
2019. Endeavour to agree a timetable in advance of this.
¢ Timetable will involve a round of early disclosure, pleadings by both sides, another round of
disclosure, witness statements and discussion as to whether experts are needed (potentially
require IT experts or forensic accounting expert dependant on what the pleadings of the
claimant look like)
¢ Claimants have intimated that the want to wait until after the Horizon judgment for first round
of pleadings. There is concern that this leaves 5 months for the remaining directions and puts
both parties under pressure ahead of the March 2020 trial. Discussions with Freeths to follow.
© Merits opinion on limitation expected by end of week 12 July.
2 Individual Claimant case profiles
Common Issues Lead Claimants
© Meeting are being set up with Tom Cooper, for him to be taken through the 6 lead claimants for
Common Issues trial. Expected to happen by end of July if not early August.
Wider Claimant Group
There are a number of reasons for commissioning a full review of claimants, as well as pressure
from Board to have oversight over full group of claimants.
@ WBD have produced a high level scoping paper for options and cost breakdown for this review.
© BF —emphasised the need to prioritise this piece of work. There should be understanding over
full claimant group.
« AW-discussions need to be had on whether HSF can access POL systems for this data.
Criminal Cases
e WEBD host a digital platform for all materials that deal with the CCRC. WBD to grant HSF access.
@ 31 of these are claimants in the group litigation, a factual matrix for the criminal cases needs to
be put together.
e AW -need to look at what we want to achieve, rather than reviewing information blindly. This
point is raised continuously by Tom Cooper
¢ AP to circulate briefing note on background of criminal cases. See Action 2.
© RWand KE to pick up offline.
3 Settlement
Update on correspondence with Claimant
e WBD wrote to claimant with proposed mediation dates, still awaiting a response.
* AP had a conversation with Freeths and they want to know whether Post Office is being genuine
in the offer to mediate. Their concern is a mediation will rack up costs and this is to be avoided if
Post Office aren’t wanting to engage in the process fully.
e Settlement approach paper needs to be put together for the Board Subcommittee to gain
approval on approach.
¢ RW-the worry with a paper is that settlement is a two way street and until we know there is
engagement from the other side there is little to speak to. Without prejudice discussions need to
happen between lawyers first.
« AW -put to Board Subcommittee a plan that comprised of Post Office’s ‘wish list’ of steps to
settlement but with a caveat that the steps are dependent on Freeths engaging in the mediation
and if not then the plan could substantially change. See Action 3.
Meeting with UKGI on 15 July
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4 ARA - BF
¢ BF has provided first draft to Al Cameron.
e Final paper will be shared with the Post Office auditors — PWC.
5 Operational Impact
Update on workshops and preparation for July Board
Traceability matrix has been created and is read to be shared. ZB is currently working on an
executive summary of the document that will form part of the July board paper.
* JT—it will be challenging to get everything into one paper. A potential option is to pull together
behavioural and cultural behaviours into a reading paper for POL board to be able to top line
wider operational aspects.
Historic Claims
Current total of historic claims is at 25 following the judgement. This figure is lower than
expected.
Nothing so far has met threshold to be reported back to Freeths.
* Next step is considering what needs to be done in respect of those claims - do we investigate
them, leave them at the moment. ZB and JT to pick up offline.
* JT—two categories of historic claims, those who have left the business and then current agents.
Two categories potentially mean two different approached to historic claims.
¢ BF-resolving this should go to Board Subcommittee to determine what to do with the historic
claims.
¢ ZB-—there is also a resource implication for this work - to pick up with JT.
Comms Update
e Work being completed to ensure comms approach is closely aligning with contingency reporting
which will cover the three potential scenarios of the horizon judgment.
¢@ The work has been focused on the scenario of a very bad judgment, lining up where there is risk
and ensuring a core narrative is put in place
e Expected that this work will be finalised over next week or so ready for the July Board.
There are also discussions about reviewing the overall comms plan as the current approach has’t
particularly worked in Post Office’s favour.
¢ PB - at what point do we get more granular about individual cases and start to respond more
specifically. There are far more discussions to be had on this before a substantial proposal can be
produced.
Horizon Contingency
¢ Series of workshops have been held with Deloitte to put together contingency planning
proposal/presentation that pulls together a plan of mitigation actions.
The plan picks up the key actions that need to be communicated, identifying the business
impact, what the response will be, the owner of the response and the timeline.
The expectation is that before the July Board a lot of mitigations will have already been delivered
to prevent risks from crystallising.
© BF-Tim’s focus of the contingency planning are the operational/technical measures that will be
introduced in response to the judgment.
6 Stakeholder Activity
¢ Not discussed
7 Resource Requirements
© Protocol for responding to judgment in case of absence etc to be put in place. See Action 5.
8 Costs Update
© Not discussed
Minutes of Meeting
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9 Agreed Actions
* Not discussed
10 Next Meeting
¢ Not discussed
11 A.O.B
e Ensure updated timetable and action lists are circulated to steerco attendees each week.
Actions
No Description Owner Status
1 Provide HSF access to digital platform hosting all CCRC related WBD
documents
2 Circulate to HSF briefing note on the CCRC cases WBD.
3 Settlement approach paper HSF
4 Historic claims approach paper Zoe Brauer, Julie
Thomas & WBD
5 Judgment response protocol WBD.
Author of Minutes: AD
Date: 4 July 2019