LONDON — The firm at the center of one of the biggest U.K. scandals in recent memory is bidding to keep running Great Britain’s border with Northern Ireland.

Japanese tech firm Fujitsu has faced intense public scrutiny after faulty data from its Horizon software led to hundreds of innocent workers at the U.K.’s Post Office being wrongly convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting. Many are still awaiting compensation.

It is now spearheading a bid by a group of firms, including a long-time ally of former Prime Minister Liz Truss, for the £370 million contract, five people with knowledge of the process confirmed to POLITICO.

Fujitsu’s bid for the lucrative contract follows its pledge in 2024 — amid intense scrutiny of the Post Office scandal following a hit TV drama — not to bid for public sector deals unless requested by government or in cases where there is “an existing customer relationship.”

Fujitsu is vying to retain control of the Trader Support Service, a software platform that helps businesses navigate complex post-Brexit customs arrangements for moving goods like chilled meat between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Before Britain left the EU in 2020, Fujitsu, Truss ally Shanker Singham’s firm Competere and others were awarded a two-year contract to create and run the TSS customs platform. Following several extensions up to the end of 2025, the total value of that contract has ballooned to more than £500 million for the firms.

If Fujitsu’s bid is successful, the contract — expected to be awarded in the autumn — would see the firm continue to run the crucial border software for at least another five years, with the potential to extend it to seven.

“We continue to work with the U.K. government to ensure we adhere to the voluntary restrictions we put in place regarding bidding for new contracts while the Post Office Inquiry is ongoing,” a Fujitsu spokesperson said.

News of Fujitsu’s fresh bid for public sector work comes as Westminster digests the official Post Office inquiry’s first report, published Tuesday.

The report highlighted the “disastrous” impact of the scandal on those wrongly accused and prosecuted for criminal offences.

The report found that some employees of Fujitsu had advance knowledge that the system at the heart of the scandal — Horizon — was capable of producing false data about what was going on in Post Office branches.

“Like its predecessor, Horizon Online was also, from time to time, afflicted by bugs, errors and defects which had the effect of showing gains and losses in branch and Crown Office accounts which were illusory. I am satisfied that a number of employees of Fujitsu and the Post Office knew that this was so,” the inquiry’s chair concluded in the report.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said he welcomed the publication of the report and was “committed to ensuring wronged subpostmasters are given full, fair and prompt redress.”

‘Deeply troubling message’

MPs are already calling for the government to step in on future Fujitsu contract. The firm’s commitment not to bid on public contracts “appears increasingly hollow,” Labour MP Kate Osborne, a former employee at Royal Mail, warned Reynolds Monday, in a letter shared with POLITICO.

The firm has targeted £1.3 billion in U.K. government contracts in the past year alone, she said.

“The continued award of lucrative government contracts to Fujitsu, while victims of their failures remain inadequately compensated, sends a deeply troubling message about our values as a government,” she added. “It suggests that corporate irresponsibility carries no meaningful consequences, and that public money can be earned even after causing immense harm to innocent citizens.”

Fujitsu’s bid to continue the operation of the TSS raises “profound questions about accountability in public procurement and justice for Horizon victims” and sends a “deeply troubling message about our values as a government,” the MP continued.

Osborne — whose constituent Chris Head is among the subpostmasters still waiting for compensation — urged the government to implement an immediate moratorium on awarding new contracts to Fujitsu until they have made a substantial financial contribution to victims.

“So many lives have been ruined by the Post Office and Fujitsu,” she said. “Whilst nothing can ever compensate for how they have been treated, it is sickening that people like my constituent Chris Head have not received any compensation yet Fujitsu are raking in billions of pounds from government contracts.”

Competere’s CEO, Singham, serves as “policy lead of the Trader Support Service Consortium,” according to the firm’s website. He is also chairman of the Growth Growth Commission, a free-market economic think tank founded by Truss in 2023. He served as an advisor to the Truss back in 2020.

Singham castigated the current Labour government’s new Trade Strategy late last month as chairman of the Growth Commission. The strategy is “troubling,” he wrote, citing “negative impacts of aligning to the EU” in Sanitary and Phytosanitary regulation — a move that would reduce the need for checks at the border — because it could limit trade with the U.S.

Singham’s current role in the TSS is “a tiny part of the overall contract,” he said, confirming Competere is part of a wider Fujitsu-led consortium bidding to keep running the service.

The U.K. government has been approached for comment.