BEIS’s legal costs incurred as a result of Post Office’s Horizon Litigation

Eleanor Shaikh made this Freedom of Information request to Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.

The request was refused by Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

Eleanor Shaikh
Delivered

Dear Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy,

In her letter of response to the BEIS Select Committee’s Inquiry into Post Office and Horizon, ex-POL CEO, Paula Vennells stated that, regarding Board-level discussions of Horizon:

‘The UKGI directors were fully engaged in the discussions...The present UKGI incumbent director...was fully engaged on the Board, sub- committee and with ministers and lawyers at BEIS’ (24th June 2020, p17, para 60).

https://committees.parliament.uk/publica...

Moreover, during a House of Lords debate on 18th June 2020, BEIS’s Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Lord Callanan, revealed ‘Of course the Horizon court case occupied a lot of time and effort in both government and the post office’.

https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2020...

i) Please can you disclose the total legal costs to the Department for BEIS which were incurred during, and as a result of, POL’s Horizon Litigation? Please can you also breakdown into expenditure per tax year?

ii) Please differentiate between costs incurred by BEIS’s legal department and those incurred as a result of engaging external specialist legal advice.

Yours faithfully,

Eleanor Shaikh

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FOI Requests, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

BEIS ref: FOI2020/28016

Dear Ms Shaikh

Thank you for your request for information which was received on 10th
August. Your request has been passed on to the appropriate official at the
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to process.

Your request is being considered under the terms of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 and we will reply at the latest by 8th September.

If you have any queries about this email, please contact the Information
Rights & Records Unit at BEIS. Please remember to quote the reference
number above in any future communications.

Kind regards,

Information Rights & Records Unit

Information Rights & Records Unit | Department for Business, Energy and
Industrial Strategy | 1 Victoria Street, London, SW1H 0ET |
www.gov.uk/beis | [email address] |

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FOI Requests, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

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Dear Ms Shaikh,

 

Please find attached the response to your requests for information.

 

If you have any queries about this email, please contact the Information
Rights and Records Unit at BEIS.

 

Please remember to quote the reference numbers included in the annex to
this response in any future communications.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Information Rights and Records Unit

 

[1][BEIS request email]

[2]www.gov.uk/beis | [3]https://twitter.com/beisgovuk

 

[4]Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy

 

 

 

 

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