Fujitsu sacks executive at height of Horizon scandal – BBC News

Fujitsu, which created the flawed Horizon IT system, has fired a top executive amid the scandal.

Former colleagues say Rod Vaudrey, 67, was fired as Fujitsu’s global president in 2014 due to personal conduct issues.

He returned to his native Australia, where he is now on trial for his part in the “train wreck” that netted him millions.

Mr Vaudrey told the BBC he was not involved in the Horizon project.

Mr Vaudrey was in charge of the UK operation from 2011 to 2014 – a crucial time in the Horizon scandal.

But when Horizon was being discussed by the British Council, Mr Vaudrey should have known about it. Companies House filings say he was executive chairman of UK-based Fujitsu Services Ltd and sat on its audit and corporate governance committee.

At that time, details began to appear in the public space, and MPs and journalists expressed concern. But until 2013, the Post Office was still prosecuting dozens of people each year based on evidence from the department’s faulty computer system.

Alarm bells rang inside as well. In 2013, a lawyer warned the Post that a Fujitsu employee had given incomplete evidence in court, failing to disclose information about errors in his witness statements.

This was an important turning point in history, but neither Fujitsu nor the Post Office acknowledged the problems with Horizon until years later, heaping even more suffering on hundreds of those wrongly convicted.

Mr Vaudrey was the only Westerner on Fujitsu’s main board of directors, which was responsible for its operations outside Japan, including the UK, which was an important market.

Two good former colleagues of Mr Vaudrey told the BBC that the company “fired him for cause” in early 2014. Sources say it was due to personal issues and not anything to do with Horizon. expenses. “Living on a pig,” as one put it.

One described his management style as “loud”, sometimes yelling at colleagues – sometimes a “bulldog” or a “bully”, depending on whose side you were on; another source agreed.

His tenure was relatively short – just over two years – and Fujitsu’s UK accounts show no record of Mr Vaudrey’s departure, unlike the multimillion-dollar payouts to outgoing bosses before and after.

Mr Vaudrey is currently not due to appear at the Horizon Inquiry, although he will hear from Duncan Tait, who was the UK chief executive and reported to him. Foreign nationals can give evidence, but the Inquest has no power to compel them unless they return to the UK.

After Fujitsu, Mr Vaudrey returned to Australia and was embroiled in another public scandal that made him a very wealthy man.

After a hiatus, Mr Vaudrey joined what was then a small Australian start-up, a software company called Nuix, and became chief executive in 2017.

It was a significant commercial success and launched on the Australian Stock Exchange in December 2020, the biggest market debut of the year, with many private investors taking part.

Mr Vaudrey himself immediately took home almost A$28m (£15m; $18m) in cash and was left with another A$8m worth of stock.

However, a few months later, the share price collapsed, causing many investors to suffer heavy losses.

Mr Vaudrey resigned on June 15, 2021, and Australian police raided the company’s headquarters the following week.

Rolf Krolke, a former senior executive turned whistleblower, told an Australian parliamentary inquiry last year that the Nuix float was “a train wreck waiting to happen”. Nooks said it “rejects” his claims.

The stock exchange regulator, ASIC, is now taking Nuix and its board, including Mr Vaudrey, to court for alleged “breach of continuous disclosure laws” and “breach of directorship”. The case was heard last December and the court has yet to make a decision, ASIC said.

In an emailed statement, Nuix said: “Nuix and the relevant directors disputed the matters that are the subject of ASIC’s review.”

Mr Vaudrey said: “I’m not interested in talking to journalists [Horizon]I was not involved,” and did not comment further on the detailed allegations against him.

Fujitsu declined to comment.