Post Office paid law firms as much as victims of Horizon scandal

Lawyers earned more than £250 million for representing the Post Office during the Horizon scandal — nearly equalling the amount paid in compensation so far to sub-postmasters.
A Freedom of Information request has revealed that 15 law firms and two sets of barristers’ chambers received nearly £257 million over about ten years until March last year for advising the state-owned business. The scandal was the biggest miscarriage of justice in British legal history and resulted in more than 900 people being wrongly prosecuted — with many jailed for fraud.
Several sub-postmasters killed themselves before the Court of Appeal began quashing convictions last year. Government figures have shown that so far the sub-postmaster victims of the Horizon scandal have received about £261 million in compensation as of last month.
The FoI request — submitted by the website The Lawyer — related to various areas of advice provided to the Post Office, including around the group litigation brought by the victims that was led by one of the sub-postmasters, Alan Bates, who received a knighthood in June.
Advice also covered the establishment of compensation schemes for sub-postmasters and issues around the representation at the independent inquiry. The highest biller was revealed to be Herbert Smith Freehills, an Anglo-Australian law firm based in the City of London, which the website said received more than £163.5 million from the Post Office.
That firm replaced Womble Bond Dickinson, an Anglo-US practice, in representing the company in the Bates litigation. Herbert Smith continued to advise the Post Office on issues around two compensation schemes as well as the inquiry until last June, when it was replaced by two other law firms, Burges Salmon and Fieldfisher.
In a statement, Herbert Smith told the researchers that its work for the Post Office had been “complex and wide-ranging, involving hundreds of our staff over a number of years, and working with millions of documents in relation to the inquiry”.
The firm went on to say that it had “immense sympathy for the postmasters affected by the Horizon IT system, and what they and their families have endured. As one of several advisers on the compensation schemes, we will continue to support the Post Office in its efforts to deliver fair compensation as swiftly as possible.”
Peters & Peters — a specialist white-collar crime law firm — was the second-highest biller, logging more than £43.3 million in fees from the Post Office. The firm advised the company from 2020 on matters regarding disclosure in sub-postmasters’ appeals against their convictions, in which the Post Office had relied on evidence provided by the faulty Horizon system. Peters & Peters — which in the mid-1990s represented Kevin Maxwell as he was acquitted of fraud charges over his father’s publishing empire — was also instructed for criminal aspects of the Horizon IT inquiry.
The FoI request also revealed that Womble Bond Dickinson — which handled the bulk of the Bates litigation — received about £24.7 million in legal fees from the Post Office. The firm was criticised in the inquiry when it emerged that its lawyers discussed withholding key documents from the sub-postmasters during litigation.
The inquiry was told that one lawyer from the firm emailed an in-house solicitor at the Post Office in 2016, to say that “for now, we’ll do what we can to avoid disclosure … and try to do so in a way that looks legitimate”. But in that memo, the Womble Bond Dickinson lawyer went on to acknowledge “we are ultimately withholding a key document and this may attract some criticism”.
Responding to website researchers regarding its fees, the firm said in a statement that it had “great sympathy for all those affected by the issues being investigated by the Horizon public inquiry and recognises the very real personal impact these have had on sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses.
“As the FoI response notes, it is important to clarify that the £24.7 million figure quoted includes third-party costs, such as barristers’ fees, which were paid via disbursements, rather than directly by Post Office”.