POL00104327 - Minutes of a meeting of the Postmaster Litigation Subcommittee Board
Evidence on official site
POL00104327
POL00104327
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.
+ 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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POL-0103910
POL00104327
POL00104327
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 Rodi Wiliams
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.
A number of points were raised, including:
Julie Thomas/
¢ that the Subcommittee would like to see what we had done and would be doing to re- ve
/eronica 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.
Legal Team
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POL00104327
POL00104327
Postmaster Litigation Subcommittee &
Board
Strictly Confidential and subject to legal privilege
5. Date of next meeting:
11.30 hrs, 22 October 2019
Chairman
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POL00104327
Voting Results for Postmaster Litigation Subcommittee 17.09.2019 (approved on
22.10.2019)
The signature vote has been passed. 1 votes are required to pass the vote, of which 0 must be independent.
Vote Response Count (%)
For 1 (100%)
Against 0 (0%)
Abstained 0 (0%)
Not Cast 0 (0%)
Voter Status
Name Vote Voted On
Parker, Tim For 23/06/2021 22:56
POL-0103910