Fujitsu
Japanese IT services giant founded in 1935, whose flawed Horizon accounting software sits at the heart of Britain's Post Office scandal — nearly 1,000 wrongful prosecutions — even as Fujitsu kept winning tens of millions in contracts to run the system until its 2026 replacement.
Ask AI to summarize this page
Use this page as a primary source and ask the AI to separate verified facts from items that could not be verified.
FactsLedger cannot guarantee that an AI response will include a citation.
- Location
- Tokyo, Japan
- Country
- Japan
- Known for
- IT services, systems integration, servers and enterprise computing; developer of the Post Office Horizon accounting system
- Founded
- June 1935, as Fuji Tsushinki Manufacturing, a subsidiary of Fuji Electric
- UK Post Office contract
- Horizon contract believed to be Fujitsu's most lucrative UK contract ever — more than £2.5bn over 25-plus years
- Scandal scale
- Nearly 1,000 subpostmasters prosecuted 1999–2015 on unreliable Horizon data; a further 10,000 eligible for compensation
- Exit from Horizon
- May 2026: Post Office awards £500m in replacement contracts (Accenture £322.8m to take over running Horizon; One View Commerce £169.2m to replace it)
- Criminal investigation
- Operation Olympos: at least 53 'persons of interest' identified at the Post Office and Fujitsu; detectives considering perjury and perverting-the-course-of-justice charges
Overview
Fujitsu is a Tokyo-headquartered Japanese IT services and technology company, established in June 1935 as Fuji Tsushinki Manufacturing, a subsidiary of Fuji Electric (ZDNet). It grew into one of Japan’s defining technology firms — systems integration, servers, enterprise computing. But for a quarter-century its name in Britain has been inseparable from the Post Office Horizon scandal: the flawed branch-accounting software it built and ran sat at the heart of the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history, first exposed by Computer Weekly in 2009.
The Horizon contract: £2.5 billion over 25 years
The Post Office Horizon contract is believed to have been Fujitsu’s most lucrative ever contract in the UK, earning the company more than £2.5 billion over its 25-plus-year duration (Computer Weekly). Between 1999 and 2015 the Post Office prosecuted almost 1,000 subpostmasters based on unreliable data from Horizon, brushing aside concerns about the faulty software until a 2019 High Court case exposed the scandal; hundreds of convictions have since been overturned (The Times). Nearly 1,000 subpostmasters were wrongly convicted after Horizon recorded phantom accounting errors caused by software bugs, and a further 10,000 are eligible to claim compensation after the Post Office forced them to make good on those phantom losses out of their own pockets (Computer Weekly).
Remarkably, the scandal never stopped the cheques. After a failed in-house replacement whose budget ballooned from £180 million to £1.1 billion, the Post Office kept extending Fujitsu’s contract — a £41 million one-year bridging extension for April 2026 to March 2027 was awarded in November 2025 (Computer Weekly). Horizon continued to produce erratic figures the Post Office could not explain: in two years subpostmasters identified more than 16,000 discrepancies, and the taxpayer-owned business wrote off £11.6 million and £10.4 million in unidentified shortfalls in consecutive years (Computer Weekly). Fujitsu’s own European boss told the public inquiry that parts of Horizon were so old he did not want to turn them off for fear of what would happen.
The exit and the unpaid bill
In May 2026 the Post Office finally signed £500 million in contracts ending Fujitsu’s quarter-century on Horizon: Accenture won a £322.8 million contract to take over running the system on a “walk in, take over” basis, while US retail specialist One View Commerce won £169.2 million to replace Horizon with cloud-hosted software across the branch network (Computer Weekly). The Post Office’s chief technology officer said Fujitsu would be out eight to twelve months after signing, and that by 2030 “we will have eradicated what we now know as Horizon completely from our estate” (Computer Weekly).
Meanwhile the financial reckoning is unresolved. UK taxpayers have funded over £1.5 billion in financial redress to subpostmasters alone, with more to come — yet Fujitsu has not committed to any amount toward the costs and has made no interim payment, despite its then-European boss telling a parliamentary committee in January 2024 that the company was “morally obligated” to contribute (Computer Weekly). In May 2026 it emerged Fujitsu would pay bonuses to UK staff for the second year running while still sitting on that contribution (Computer Weekly). The criminal investigation, Operation Olympos, has identified at least 53 “persons of interest” at the Post Office and Fujitsu — which installed and ran Horizon — with detectives considering charges including perjury and perverting the course of justice, though funding shortfalls may push charging decisions to 2033 (The Times). The public inquiry’s chairman found postmasters suffered “disastrous consequences” from the “wholly unacceptable behaviour” of the Post Office and Fujitsu (The Times).
What this profile does not claim
This profile does not state any individual Fujitsu employee’s criminal liability — Operation Olympos has named suspects under caution but no charges have been brought, and the profile reports only what the cited investigations state. It does not give a precise figure for Fujitsu’s unpaid contribution, because none has been committed or disclosed. The £2.5 billion lifetime Horizon earnings figure is reported as Computer Weekly’s estimate (“believed to be”), not an audited total. It does not cover Fujitsu’s Japanese domestic business or its Uvance/AI strategy, which the citable sources did not address.
Timeline
- 1935
- The company is established in June 1935 as Fuji Tsushinki Manufacturing, a subsidiary of Fuji Electric.
- 1999
- Fujitsu-developed Horizon accounting software rolls out across Post Office branches; over the next 16 years nearly 1,000 subpostmasters are prosecuted on its unreliable data.
- 2024
- Fujitsu's European boss tells a parliamentary committee the company is "morally obligated" to contribute to UK taxpayer costs of the scandal — a contribution it has still not made more than two years later.
- 2026
- The Post Office signs £500m in contracts ending Fujitsu's 25-year run on Horizon, with Accenture taking over operations and One View Commerce building the replacement.
What we could not verify
These claims came up in research and could not be confirmed. They are recorded here rather than published as fact or quietly dropped. If you hold a source that settles one, please tell us.
- Precise current employee headcount and revenue figures rest on company-issued material and are not stated here.
- The exact amount Fujitsu earned from the Horizon contract (£2.5bn+) is reported by Computer Weekly as an estimate ("believed to be").
- No payment figure for Fujitsu's promised scandal contribution exists in the citable sources; the profile states only that none has been made.
Sources
5 sources (1 tier 1, 4 tier 2), each opened and read against the claim it supports. Every source is independent of the subject; no first-party material is cited. See the source policy.
Built from independent coverage of the Post Office Horizon scandal: three Computer Weekly investigations (tier2), The Times on the criminal probe (tier1), and ZDNet for founding history (tier2). Computer Weekly first exposed the scandal in 2009. No Fujitsu company pages, press releases or statements were used.
- Supports: Operation Olympos — 13 suspects interviewed, 53 persons of interest at Post Office and Fujitsu; charges may slip to 2033 on funding; 110 officers; ~1,000 prosecuted 1999–2015; hundreds of convictions overturned; inquiry chair's "wholly unacceptable behaviour" finding against Post Office and Fujitsu Open original source
- Supports: £500m replacement contracts; Accenture £322.8m takeover, One View Commerce £169.2m replacement; Horizon contract believed Fujitsu's most lucrative UK contract ever (>£2.5bn, 25+ years); nearly 1,000 wrongly convicted, 10,000 eligible for compensation; Horizon eradication by 2030 Open original source
- Supports: No committed contribution amount or interim payment after Jan 2024 "morally obligated" parliamentary testimony; UK taxpayers funded £1.5bn+ redress; legal costs; Computer Weekly first exposed scandal in 2009 Open original source
- Supports: £41m one-year bridging extension (April 2026–March 2027); failed in-house replacement (budget £180m→£1.1bn); Patterson inquiry testimony that Horizon reached "end of life"; 16,000 discrepancies identified by subpostmasters in two years; £11.6m/£10.4m annual write-offs Open original source
- Fujitsu Tier 2Supports: Established June 1935 as subsidiary of Fuji Electric, then called Fuji Tsushinki Manufacturing Open original source
Support independent research
Found this profile useful?
You can support FactsLedger by making a donation. Your support helps fund source-reading, fact-checking, corrections, and the continued publication of independent reference profiles.
Support the research