Fujitsu — the Japanese tech agency behind the defective Horizon accounting software program on the centre of the British Submit Workplace scandal — has been urged to take accountability for the faulty tech that will have led to the wrongful prosecution of a whole bunch of workers.
The IT large is now the topic of an inquiry to determine whether or not it’s culpable for the scandal that led to the prosecution of greater than 700 Submit Workplace workers, accused of stealing after Horizon confirmed shortfalls of their branches’ accounts.
However it’s not the primary time Fujitsu’s software program has been on the centre of a public scandal.
Since its basis in 1935 in Japan’s Kawasaki, the corporate has produced every thing from laptops and supercomputers to chips, software program, cellphones and residential home equipment. The corporate grew throughout Japan’s postwar financial increase, additional extending its companies to Western nations, together with the UK.
Fujitsu was the corporate behind Japan’s first ever pc – the FACOM 100.
“Fujitsu combines the ability of IoT with digital applied sciences, AI, and community options to ship hyperconnected enterprise transformation,” an announcement on the £23.8bn firm’s web site reads.
Helmed by chief govt Takahito Tokita, the agency now caters to a rising variety of Japanese firms embracing digital workflows to maintain up with technological mobility.
Mr Tokita and a gaggle of 49 executives are chargeable for the operations of the corporate.
Fujitsu is headquartered in Tokyo however operates by way of prolonged divisions and amenities in China, Germany, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, India, the UAE, the UK and the US.
Firm’s fame
Regardless of its lengthy and spectacular historical past, Fujitsu has been concerned in a string of scandals and software program glitches which have tarnished its fame amongst abnormal residents in Japan.
In 2002, Fujitsu was one in every of three companies that got here hearth for glitches at ATMs belonging to one in every of Japan’s main banks, leading to 2.5 million delayed debits.
The corporate was blamed for a buying and selling lack of $300m (£234m )in 2005 after its Tokyo Inventory Trade software program was unable to cancel an incorrect order. Following a decade-long authorized battle, a courtroom in Japan dominated in 2015 that the agency’s software program wasn’t legally liable.
Almost 20 years later, the corporate’s software program supporting the operations of the inventory change failed once more – inflicting the lack of a full day’s buying and selling in 2020.
“We apologise for any inconvenience brought on to the involved events due to a failure within the {hardware} we delivered,” a spokesperson for the corporate mentioned in an announcement on the time. The incident prompted the corporate boss’s to take a 50 per cent pay lower for 4 months in an act of public penance.
In June of 2023, a minimum of 123 municipalities needed to droop the operation of a Fujitsu-based system to problem residence playing cards to holders of the nation’s ‘My Quantity’ ID card, in line with The Spectator.
A month previous to the incident machines in comfort shops issuing municipal certificates started malfunctioning.
“They’re a nationwide shame,” the report quoted one Japanese nationwide as saying.
Fujitsu’s previous dealings with UK authorities
Horizon was rolled out in 1999 and commenced reporting false money shortfalls at branches throughout the nation. The accusations tore individuals’s lives aside, with many shedding their jobs and houses.
Fujitsu mentioned it was dedicated to supporting an inquiry that has been underway since 2021. “The inquiry has bolstered the devastating affect on postmasters’ lives and that of their households, and Fujitsu has apologised for its function of their struggling,” the agency mentioned in an announcement this week.
The identical 12 months of Horizon’s implementation, the agency gained a £184m contract to develop software program to standardise case administration transactions throughout over 300 magistrates’ courts.
The software program – Libra – price 3 times greater than anticipated however struggled to provide even fundamental monetary data.
Fujitsu was additionally one of many 4 firms tasked with digitising the NHS in 2004. However the British authorities terminated the contract in 2008 because of the firm’s alleged failure to ship the promised product.
The Japanese firm finally sued the NHS and gained the case in 2014, the BBC reported. The termination price the UK authorities £700m.
Regardless of the varied controversies, Fujitsu was awarded practically over 190 public contracts price roughly £6.7bn previously decade, in line with analysts Tussell.
About 43 of these contracts had been nonetheless in operation, amounting to £3.6bn, which included the contract for Horizon. Fujistu’s income from its public sector contracts totalled £427m within the 2021-22 monetary 12 months, Tussell discovered.
The corporate was faraway from the British authorities’s checklist of most popular suppliers in 2022, nonetheless, it continued to nonetheless win authorities contracts by way of the common procurement course of.
Ministers tried to forestall Fujitsu getting extra official work however this proved “unimaginable” regardless of its “woeful” efficiency, a Tory peer mentioned on Wednesday.
Lord Maude of Horsham, who served as Cupboard Workplace minister below David Cameron, mentioned procurement guidelines thwarted ministers’ efforts.
He mentioned if Fujitsu had “any sense of honour” it will swiftly make a major fee in direction of the compensation of wrongly convicted subpostmasters.
The Unbiased has reached out to Fujitsu for remark.