In evidence to MPs on the business select committee, Fujitsu's European boss, Paul Patterson, admitted that the company had known the IT system was faulty since the 1990s.
Fujitsu has earned £2.4bn from the contract, which will have run for more than a quarter of a century by the time it concludes. The bill for compensation, which will be paid by the government and the taxpayer-owned Post Office, is now expected to exceed £1bn.
Asked if the Japanese-owned company should contribute, Patterson agreed it should. But he said the exact amount would be determined only after the inquiry, led by a judge, Sir Wyn Williams.
"I think there is a moral obligation for the company to contribute," Patterson said. "The right place to determine that is when our responsibility is very clear. There are many parties involved in this travesty." He admitted that Fujitsu had known the Horizon system was flawed at the time that the firm supported the Post Office in prosecuting more than 700 post office operators.
"Fujitsu would like to apologise for our part in this appalling miscarriage of justice. We were involved from the very start. We did have bugs and errors from the start and we did help the Post Office with prosecutions of subpostmasters."
The committee chair, Liam Byrne, told the Guardian Fujitsu's admission was a "step forward" and called for clarity from the government on how much redress ministers would demand from the Post Office and Fujitsu and how the speed of delivery.
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