POL00103667 - Minutes of Meeting of the Postmaster Litigation Subcommittee of POL

Evidence on official site

POL00103667
POL00103667

Postmaster Litigation Subcommittee &
Board
Strictly Confidential and subject to legal privilege

MINUTES OF A MEETING OF THE POSTMASTER LITIGATION SUBCOMMITTEE OF POST OFFICE LIMITED HELD ON
TUESDAY 17 SEPTEMBER 2019 AT 20 FINSBURY STREET, LONDON EC2Y 9AQ AT 10.00 HRS

Present:
Tim Parker Chairman (TP) (by phone)
Ken McCall Senior Independent Director (KM)
Tom Cooper Non-Executive Director (TC)
In attendance:
Nick Read Group Chief Executive (NR)
Ben Foat General Counsel (BF)
Veronica Branton Company Secretary (VB)
Rodric Williams Head of Legal - Dispute Resolution & Brand (RW)
Catherine Emanuel Herbert Smith Freehills (CE)
Andrew Parsons Womble Bond Dickinson (AP)
Richard Watson General Counsel — UKGI (RW)
Alan Watts Herbert Smith Freehills (AW)
Action
1. Welcome and Conflicts of Interest

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. Minutes and Matters Arising

The minutes of the meetings held on 24 April 2019, 12 June 2019 and 20 June 2019 were
APPROVED and AUTHORISED for signature by the Chairman.

3. Updates on Court Activity (oral updates)

Catherine Emanuel provided an overview of court activity including the Common Issues
Appeal, the Horizon Issues Judgment and the Third/ Further Issues Trial.

An oral hearing on the application for leave to appeal had been scheduled for 12 November
2019 at which each side would have two hours to make their case.

The Horizon issues judgment was likely to be released at some point in October 2019 but
the timing was in the Court’s hands. The Court would also indicate when the Judgment
would be made public but it was likely that POL and the claimants’ solicitors would receive a
copy under embargo. The embargoed Judgment would be circulated to the Subcommittee?
and the legal team would read through this at speed to provide the headline findings and
then produce a more detailed briefing.

Ben Foat reported that a Horizon contingency planning group had been working through the
worst case scenarios (including the Judge finding the Horizon system not fit for purpose) and
through less extreme scenarios.

The Horizon Issues Judgment and the decision on leave to appeal would change the overall
position of the litigation.

1 It was agreed that this should not include Richard Watson, General Counsel, UKGI who was an observer at the
Subcommittee meetings.
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POL00103667
POL00103667

Postmaster Litigation Subcommittee &
Board
Strictly Confidential and subject to legal privilege

The third trial was scheduled for March 2020 and would look at the principles of how loss

would be calculated. Work would start at the end of October 2019 with test cases. Four of

the six claimants from the Common Issues Trial had been selected. The briefing notes Rodric Williams
associated with these cases would be circulated to the Subcommittee. The trial was not

designed to focus on the details of the original cases but the legal team would be working

on the assumption that claimants would wish to pivot back to their case. A number of court

hearings would also be taking place on procedural issues. A decision would need to be

reached on which counsel to use for the trial. Helen Davies QC had held this time in her

diary but the Subcommittee would be asked to take the decision on which counsel to

appoint when we knew more about the timing of the Common Issues appeal.

Anumber of points were raised, including:

Julie Thomas/

© that the Subcommittee would like to see what we had done and would be doing to re- Veronica Branton

design business processes and which changes were a consequence of the Common
Issues Judgment. An item would be added to the next Subcommittee agenda
¢ ownership of business processes was discussed and it was noted that this had changed
when Al Cameron had become interim CEO and business processes had moved into the
Chief Operating Officer's remit under Rob Houghton. A permanent owner needed to be
identified now that Rob Houghton had left the business and Nick Read would consider Nick Read
who this should be.

4. Settlement / Mediation (Draft Board Report)

Ben Foat provided an overview of the paper to the Board on the settlement and mediation
issues. Our legal strategy had changed to explore settlement options fully. The paper
considered recoverability from a legal perspective, the claimants’ funding arrangements and
what their funders might seek from a settlement. Settlement ranges were provided,
including factors such as post termination losses and other categories of claim such as
personal injury, stigma and harassment and what might be recoverable under these. The
Subcommittee was not being asked to take any decision on potential settlement figures
currently. We were trying to arrange a lawyers meeting for both sides in October 2019 to
discuss a number of issues, including figures, prior to the mediation process starting.

Catherine Emanuel provided an overview of the advice on settlement provided by Herbert
Smith Freehills and the Subcommittee discussed this in detail. It was noted that assistants’
claims were not included in this analysis. There were different potential periods for post
termination losses. It was reported that normally claims would be limited to the contract
termination period but that the Common Issues Judgment had referred to a payment not
being “less than” the termination period while also referring in some instances to a period
of 12 months. The period for post termination losses was an issue that we would like to
take to appeal. It was noted that £5m in payments had been made to claimants to date.

A number of points were raised, including:

e that we needed a better understanding of the thinking of the claimants and their funders
and how we would be approaching the case in their position

© that it would be helpful to translate some of the figures provided into specific examples _ Legal Team
(a “bottom up” analysis) and see what the overall position would be depending on which
categories of claimants we included

e the approval process for determining settlement figures and funding was discussed. It
was noted that a merits opinion would need to be produced as part of the Shareholder

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POL00103667

POL00103667
Postmaster Litigation Subcommittee &
Board
Strictly Confidential and subject to legal privilege
funding approval process but that it was sensible for this to be drafted after the Horizon
Issues Judgment had been issued.
5. Date of next meeting:

11.30 hrs, 22 October 2019

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