News

Cohabitee wins right to pension

Tuesday 21 February 2017

The Supreme Court has ruled that a nomination requirement relating to the payment of a survivor’s pension under a public sector pension scheme discriminated against cohabiting unmarried couples and should be disapplied.

Reversing Trustee Decisions

Monday 17 June 2013

Trustees have on occasion relied on the “Hastings Bass” rule to unwind decisions that subsequently transpire to have unintended consequences. The scope to do so has been narrowed by the recent Supreme Court judgments in the jointly heard cases of Futter and another v HMRC and Pitt and another v HMRC.

EU Solvency Rules dropped

Monday 10 June 2013

The European Commission has announced that it is dropping its plans for a new funding regime for pension schemes.

Pensions for Mortgages

Thursday 29 November 2012

Nick Clegg announces a new government idea to allow parents to use their pensions to help children onto the property ladder.

Case law - IBM loses High Court pensions case

Thursday 29 November 2012

IBM will have to rectify the trust deeds and rules for its UK defined benefit scheme to allow active members to retire from age 60 without the organisation’s consent or reduction in their pension, following a High Court judgement.

Scottish Council fined over data protection breaches

Monday 26 November 2012

The Information Commissioner has fined a council £250,000 for a data breach that saw former employees' pensions records found in a paper recycling bank in a supermarket car park.

Key report into UK equity markets

Monday 26 November 2012

Professor Kay was appointed by the Government to carry out an independent review into investment in UK equity markets and long term decision making.

Pensions Ombudsman - Pensions Ombudsman holds that erroneous information in scheme booklet was binding

Friday 23 November 2012

This is an unusual example of a case where the Pensions Ombudsman has been willing to rule that a statement contained in ancillary literature, such as a scheme booklet, was binding, even though it contradicted the scheme rules.

Pensions Ombudsman orders member to return overpayment of benefits

Friday 23 November 2012

In Fitzgerald, the Deputy Pensions Ombudsman has held that a member must repay over £70,000 of overpayments he received as a result of his failure to submit annual certificates of re-employment to the scheme administrator.

Small DC pension pots: new framework for automatic transfer

Wednesday 21 November 2012

Following a consultation exercise, the Government plans to introduce legislation providing for the automatic transfer of defined contribution (“DC”) pension pots up to a limit yet to be decided, but likely to be between £2,000 and £20,000.

Case law - Industrial Acoustics Company Limited v Crowhurst & others

Wednesday 21 November 2012

This High Court decision concerned a scheme which had been amended to equalise normal retirement dates between men and women, but unfortunately a later consolidation of the scheme trust deed and rules mistakenly contained wording which unravelled those amendments.

Pension Protection Fund PPF) - new powers

Thursday 15 November 2012

New powers have recently been introduced under the Pensions Act 2011 designed to simplify the PPF’s entry processes.