POL00006763
POL00006763
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”
AT 11.00 AM AT 20 FINSBURY SREET, LO
OR “POL”) ON TUESDAY 10 JULY 2018
INDON EC2Y 9AQ
I Present: Tim Parker Chairman (TP)
Paula Vennells Chief Executive (PV)
Ken McCall Senior Independent Director (KM)
_ Tom Cooper Non-Executive Director (TC)
Alisdair Cameron
Chief Financial and Operations Officer (AC) I
In Attendance: Jane MacLeod.
General Counsel & Company Secretary (JM)
Veronica Branton
Minute Secretary (VB)
Andy Parsons
Partner, Womble Bond Dickinson (AP)
Angela Van-Den-Bogerd
Network Change Operations Manager (A
VDB)
Rodric Williams
Head of Legal: DR & Brands (RW)
Mark Underwood
Head of Portfolio: Legal, Risk & Governance
(Mu)
Apologies: None
These minutes contain legally privileged information I
ACTION I
1. Update on Court Process I
Andy Parsons and Rod Williams provided an update on the Court
process.
Witness statements in relation to the Common Issues trial were due
to be exchanged during September and once received, the Claimants’
statements would be carefully reviewed. There had been ongoing
discussion with the Claimants’ lawyers as to the scope and extent of I
disclosuret,however, the Post Office view was that we had complied I
with the narrower approach mandated by the Court.
Information continued to be exchanged in relation to the Horizon trial
and we were responding to a significant number of technical
questions, although a number of these questions appeared to be
either out of scope or would require identification and disclosure of an
unmanageably large or wide ranging number of documents.
All technical documents were being reviewed and the IT experts were
working with assistance from Fujitsu.
Cost management discussions had been taking place with a view to
establishing the basis for the application for security of costs. We
were seeking security to mitigate the risks with the existing ‘After the
Event’ insurance policy, and litigation funding through an off shore
hedge fund.
1 We had disclosed over 200,000 documents.
Post Office Limited tered in England and Wales. Registered No. 2154540 i}
Registered Office Finsbury Dials, 20 Finsbury Suewe Bltctly@onbidential PostOffice.co.uk I
Post Office and the Post Office logo are registered trade marks of Post Office Limited 1 j
POL-0018021
POLO0006763
POL00006763
Confidential and subject
to Legal Privilege: do not forward
Post Office Limited
Postmaster Litigation Subcommittee
Contingency Planning
It was noted that the QCs had presented their opinion on the merits
of the case at the last meeting, and had concluded that, based on the
information available to them at the time, on balance Post Office had
the better arguments.
In order to understand the potential impact of an adverse outcome,
the various terms sought by the Claimants to be implied into the
postmaster contract had been assessed from both a legal (likelihood)
and an operational (impact) perspective, and had been prioritised
using a simple ‘RAG’ approach. These were discussed with the
Committee and it was noted that, in general, those terms which had
been assessed as the most likely, in fact had a low operational impact;
and conversely, those with the greatest potential operational impact,
were less likely to be successful.
It was noted that issues could not be fixed retrospectively, accordingly
the contingency work would assess the operational response should
the legal points be found against us. It was also noted that there may
be areas which fell within normal operational improvements.
Strictly Confidential
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POL-0018021
POL00006763
POL00006763
Confidential and subject
to Legal Privilege: do not forward
Post Office Limited
Postmaster Litigation Subcommittee
The Committee noted that the assessment very helpful. It was agreed
that it would also be useful to see the interdependency between the
items (Action: Angela Van-Den-Bogerd). And that updates would
be provided at each meeting. It was noted that the updated merits
opinion should be available towards the end of September and would
need to reassess the issues at this point.
It was also noted that the legal advice had cautioned against changing
the contract in advance of the trials. It was noted that contractual
changes potentially required prior discussion and negotiation with
NFSP and there were therefore significant risks to commencing this
process until the judgement had been received and it was clear what,
if anything, needed to be addressed.
Date
Strictly Confidential
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