POL00006756 - Meeting Minutes of the Postmaster Litigation Subcommittee of POL

Evidence on official site

POL00006756
POL00006756

POST OFFICE LIMITED BOARD MEETING
Strictly Confidential and subject to legal privilege

MINUTES OF A MEETING OF THE POSTMASTER LITIGATION SUB-COMMITTEE OF THE BOARD OF
DIRECTORS OF POST OFFICE LIMITED HELD ON MONDAY 28 JANUARY 2019 AT 20 FINSBURY STREET,
LONDON EC2Y 9AQ AT 16.00 HRS

Present: Tim Parker Chairman (TP)
Paula Vennells Chief Executive (PV)
Ken McCall Senior Independent Director (KM)
Tom Cooper Non-Executive Director (TC)

In Attendance:

Alisdair Cameron

Jane MacLeod

Veronica Branton

Andy Parsons

Angela Van-Den-Bogerd

Chief Financial and Operations Officer (AC)

General Counsel & Company Secretary (JM)
Minute Secretary (VB)

Partner, Womble Bond Dickinson (AP)
Business Development Director (A VDB)

Rodric Williams
Paula Vennells
Ken McCall

Tom Cooper
Alisdair Cameron

Head of Legal: DR & Brands (RW)

Chief Executive (PV)

Senior Independent Director (KM)
Non-Executive Director (TC)

Chief Financial and Operations Officer (AC)

Jane MacLeod

Veronica Branton
Andrew Parsons

Angela Van-Den-Bogerd

In Attendance: General Counsel & Company Secretary (JM)
Minute Secretary (VB)
Partner, Womble Bond Dickinson (AP)

Network Change Operations Manager (A VDB)

ACTION
1. WELCOME AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

A quorum being present, the Chairman opened the meeting.

The Directors declared that they had no conflicts of interest in the matters to be
considered at the meeting in accordance with the requirements of section 177 of the
Companies Act 2006 and the Company’s Articles of Association.

2. UPDATE
Common Issues trial judgment

Jane MacLeod reported that we had still not received the Common Issues trial judgment
and did not know when it would be published.

Horizon trial

The Horizon trial would start on 11" March 2019. The trial would be largely decided on
expert evidence. The claimants’ side had posted some witness evidence. We had some
issues with the evidence submitted by the claimants’ expert witness and would like Fujitsu
to be able to submit some counter evidence but would need permission to serve an
additional witness statement. The main reports of the expert witnesses had already been
filed and supplementary reports were due to be filed at the end of the week. The pre-trial
review would be held on 22 February 2019.

A further briefing from the QCs on their view of the evidence and a further briefing for JM
BEIS/ UKGI was requested.

The claimants’ position was that the Horizon system had bugs, that there could have been
more bugs and these bugs could have caused the errors/ losses in the claimants’ branches.

Our expert witness was saying that there were bugs in the Horizon system, as would
always be the case in IT systems, but given the volume of the transactions through the

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POL00006756
POL00006756

POST OFFICE LIMITED BOARD MEETING
Strictly Confidential and subject to legal privilege

system it did not seem probable that these could have caused the errors/ losses in these
branches.

Breach trial

The Breach trial would consider whether we had breached any of our legal obligations. It
was hard to understand what these duties were until we had received the Judgment from
the Common Issues trial.

Mediation

The Judge was approaching mediation on the basis of there being a third trial unless there
had been a settlement prior to this.

The requirements to attempt mediation were discussed. It was reported that both sides
recognised that it would be better to have received the Common Issues trial judgment and
the Horizon trial judgment before entering mediation. We would need to appoint a
mediator together but the claimants’ side had not accepted either of the names we had
put forward because they were not QCs.

Potential “red lines” in relation to mediation were discussed. These might include:
1) anyone who had a criminal conviction

2) anyone whose claim would not be heard because of the Criminal Limitations Act
3) any individual who was not or had not been a Postmaster.

It was noted that we were mandated to try and mediate and wanted to demonstrate that
we were trying to do what the judge had asked us to do. Whether we could actually
proceed with mediation would depend on our ability to agree what could be mediated on
with the claimants’ side.

There was a further question of whether the Judge would be prepared to stay the Horizon
trial if the claimants’ side appealed the Common Issues trial because this was seen as the
best way for the claimants to achieve justice if the claimants’ backer did not wish to
continue funding the case.

We had analysed the points on which we were most likely to want to appeal if they were
not found in our favour; however, this was hard to do in advance of the Judgment and
would depend in part on the language used by the Judge. We would notify the Board
when the Judgment was received under embargo. We would then provide a quick
overview of the main points, followed by a more considered analysis. There would be 21
days in which to lodge an application to seek leave to appeal. We would need to engage
with UKGI on whether we wanted to appeal and if so the grounds of appeal. Because the
case was so complicated we did not think the Judge would state initially who would be
expected to pay the costs associated with an appeal.

The Judge could turn down the right to seek leave to appeal but that request could the
be referred to another court.

The meeting closed at 17.00 hrs.

Chairman Date

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