Avoiding the ‘F' word
Post Office scandal , Issue 1661 IT GIANT Fujitsu is so embarrassed – more than justifiably – by its own name that it appears to be venturing into cutting-edge business areas in disguise.

The day after the first episode of Mr Bates vs the Post Office aired early last year, a new company called Henkaku Ltd was incorporated with two directors, Ben Shillito and Rob Putland. They happened to be, respectively, Fujitsu's "head of digital legal services" and "head of global legal and commercial".

The senior Fujitsu legal executives are joined at Henkaku by Fujitsu's "head of data & innovation", Alice Collins.

Separation anxiety
Henkaku – Japanese for transformational change – does not trade in its own name, however, but as Olus, with no mention of the dreaded Fujitsu. Its stated aim is "empowering the legal industry to thrive in the digital era" – ie, by bringing automation and AI into legal work.

Given Fujitsu's track record in giving false evidence in the courts about its Horizon IT system's role in the Post Office scandal, it is hardly surprising nobody wants to mention the "F" word.

The matter could be particularly sensitive for Putland, who, the recent public inquiry heard, had legal oversight of Fujitsu's heavily criticised input into the real-life Mr Bates's group litigation that concluded in 2019.

Healthy start-up
Henkaku Ltd looks pretty successful for a start-up. Limited accounts up to this March show a corporate tax bill for the three-employee company (including now sole director Shillito) indicating pre-tax profits already around the £250,000 mark.

After several days blanking questions, a Fujitsu spokeswoman said Shillito and Putland were no longer employees of Fujitsu. But both remain active on internal Fujitsu systems under their pre-existing job titles, the Eye has learned.

With no army of IT specialists developing its products, it looks very much like Henkaku/Olus is quietly fronting Fujitsu's forays into the legal world – where the kind of crap IT in which it specialises could have yet more devastating consequences, and where customers deserve better than another Fujitsu cover-up.