N.Ireland gov confirms it did not ask Fujitsu to continue bidding for project

Exclusive The Northern Ireland government did not ask Fujitsu to continue bidding for a £125 million ($167 million) contract, yet the Japanese tech giant to continued to do so, despite promising to quit competing for UK government work during the fallout from the Horizon scandal.

As public outcry surrounding the scandal — one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in recent British history — reached its peak in early 2024, Fujitsu, the supplier of the Horizon computer system, said it would stop bidding for work with new government customers until the end of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry.

In a statement to The Register, a Fujitsu spokesperson said: "Fujitsu was named preferred bidder for this contract in 2023, before the voluntary restrictions came into place."

Horizon is an EPOS and backend finance system for thousands of Post Office branches around the UK, first implemented by ICL, a UK technology company majority owned by Fujitsu in the 1990s and later taken over by the Japanese giant. From 1999 until 2015, around 736 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses were wrongfully convicted of fraud when errors in the system were to blame, destroying the lives of many involved. While a number of convictions have been quashed in the courts, 60 people died before just seeing any sort of justice served. A statutory inquiry into the mass miscarriage of justice launched in 2021 is ongoing.

In January 2024, after the screening of a TV drama brought the scandal to greater public attention, Fujitsu Services Ltd director Paul Patterson confirmed the company would not continue bidding for public sector work until the end of the Inquiry.

"[T]here is no limitation or caveat on our intention to pause bidding for work with new government customers until the Inquiry has reported... We would only bid for work with a new government customer if asked to do so," he said, according to a letter [PDF] to the Cabinet Office from Dave Riley, Fujitsu head of UK public sector, dated February 6, 2024.

However, in April 2025, Fujitsu won a £125 million ($167 million) contract to build Northern Ireland's new land registry system and replace an aging standalone legacy system.

Both Fujitsu and Northern Ireland's Department of Finance, which awarded the contract, have said the award complies with UK procurement law.

However, Fujitsu has yet to explain how its decision to continue bidding for the work, a process which began in December 2021, meets the requirements of its commitment not to continue bidding for government contracts.

• Fujitsu promised to sit out UK deals ... then Northern Ireland called with £125M
• Capita's Northern Ireland school IT deal swells to over half a billion after Fujitsu exit
• We told Post Office about system problems at the highest level, Fujitsu tells Horizon Inquiry
• Northern Ireland schools ditch £485M Fujitsu deal after less than a year

In a response to Gerry Carroll, a Member of the Legislative Assembly for People Before Profit, John O'Dowd, Northern Ireland Executive finance minister, said: "Public contracts are awarded in strict adherence to procurement policy and legislation. I have been advised that officials in the Department, and its arm's-length body, have not approached Fujitsu to request they continue to tender for public contracts."

Since Patterson was clear that there was no "limitation or caveat on our intention to pause bidding" unless the client specifically requested the company continue to bid, he had the opportunity to say there would be a caveat to his commitment if Fujitsu was already a "preferred bidder". Indeed, he could have said that the tech services company was in the process of bidding for the Northern Ireland Department of Finance project and would continue with that specific bid.

The Register has asked why he did not make this clear at the time.

We have also asked Fujitsu whether Patterson or Riley knew Fujitsu was bidding for the Northern Ireland Department of Finance Land Registration Delivery Partner Project at the time they promised to "pause bidding for work with new government customers." Despite several prompts, Fujitsu has refused to answer this question.®