POL00006757 - Meeting Minutes of the Postmaster Litigation Subcommittee of POL

Evidence on official site

POL00006757
POL00006757

Confidential and subject to Legal Privilege: do not forward

Post Office Limited
Postmaster Litigation Subcommittee

MINUTES OF A MEETING OF THE POSTMASTER LITGATION SUBCOMMITEE OF POST
OFFICE LIMITED (THE “COMPANY” OR “POL”) ON MONDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2018 AT
16.00 AT 20 FINSBURY SREET, LONDON EC2Y 9AQ

Present: Tim Parker

Paula Vennells
Ken McCall

Tom Cooper
Alisdair Cameron

In Attendance: Jane MacLeod

Veronica Branton

Andy Parsons

Angela Van-Den-Bogerd
Rodric Williams

Mark Underwood

Apologies: None

Chairman (TP)
Chief Executive (PV)
Senior Independent Director (KM)

Non-Executive Director (TC)
Chief Financial and Operations Officer (AC)

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

Partner, Womble Bond Dickinson (AP)

Network Change Operations Manager (A VDB)
Head of Legal: DR & Brands (RW)

Head of Portfolio: Legal, Risk & Governance (MU)

These minutes contain legally privileged information

1.

Welcome and Conflicts of Interest

ACTION

There were no new declarations of conflicts of interest.

Minutes

The minutes of the meeting held on 10 July 2018 were APPROVED.

Update on Common Issues (Verbal)

Jane MacLeod reported that:

« we had asked for inadmissible evidence to be struck out

« we had been successful in our application for costs

« we had received information how court time would be allocated in
November 2018. Witness statements would not be read out in court, and
the Judge would go straight to cross examination.

Update on Horizon (Verbal)

Strictly Confidential
POL00006757
POL00006757

Confidential and subject to Legal Privilege: do not forward

Post Office Limited
Postmaster Litigation Subcommittee

The Horizon trail would start in March 2019 and 20 days had been
allocated. The themes for the trial have been agreed, including the
robustness of the system, remote access and the facilities available to
PMs. The Judge would have 15 questions to answer on the Horizon
system, the outcome from which would be on a spectrum rather than a
simple determination on whether or not it was a robust system. The
Judge was having to take a view on how the Horizon system had
operated in the past and the Trial outcomes would be a question of fact
and not law. We faced the challenge of explaining the Horizon system in
a plain English way and the Judge would have to choose between the two
experts’ views. The experts would be in constant dialogue in advance of
the Trial and their primary duty was to the Judge. Our expert’s view was
that Horizon was a robust system which had some “bugs” but which did
not have a material impact on the operation of the system.

Contingency Planning (including communications strategy) (verbal)

Mark Davies advised the Subcommittee that a team would be
monitoring press and communication in advance of the trial, including
social media. Lines were in place for the media. We were preparing for
different scenarios and would be briefing senior leaders internally and
key external stakeholders and partners, particularly UKGI and BEIS.

Portland were our media advisers and were assessing our approach
from an external perspective; they would be available day-to-day during
the trial. Portland understood the issues and had worked with us in the
past and understand the issue.

The media strategy was discussed and the Subcommittee wanted to be

sure that we were getting the right external communications advice. It

was AGREED that the Communications Plan would be circulated to the MD
Subcommittee.

Lawyers from UKGI were being briefed but we also had a briefing with
the Minister and Permanent Secretary at BEIS on 17 October 2018.

An update was received on contingency planning.

Chairman

Strictly Confidential