26 January 2012 Earlier this month Chris Jackson posted on the changes that have been made to PPF Type A guarantees under this year’s Pension Protection Fund levy determination, published in December 2011. Whilst Type A guarantees are by far the most popular type of contingent asset for PPF purposes, we do have a number of clients who have put in place or are looking to put in place Type C letters of credit. However the current Eurozone crisis is reducing the number of financial institutions that can meet the right criteria.
It’s PPF contingent asset season for pension schemes – dust off the old and bring in the new
10 January 2012 Chris Jackson
Christmas is over for another year and, with the last mince pie eaten and New Year’s resolution forgotten, everyone seems finally to have come back to work for a rest. Sadly there won’t be much time to rest for those pension schemes whose sponsoring employers are considering putting PPF contingent assets in place, the most popular by far being Type A guarantees. The deadline of 5pm on 30 March 2012 for submitting the paperwork might seem very far away but don’t be fooled by that*. Read the rest of this entry »
Avoiding pensions litigation: written instructions to advisers
20 December 2011 Jason Shaw
I recently gave an Allen & Overy client seminar about avoiding some of the most common causes of pensions disputes. One of the causes of pensions litigation that I identified was mistakes in scheme documentation: the parties intended the document to say X but it actually says Y. I suggested a few practical points for trying to avoid these mistakes arising in the first place. One of those points focused on the value of giving clear instructions to advisers when instructing them to amend the scheme documentation. It was a point that seems to have been well received and so I thought it was worth covering it again in brief in this blog.
Age discrimination – justification on the grounds of cost?
8 December 2011 Stephen Richards
Clients often question whether the costs that would result from changes made to their pension schemes to comply with age discrimination laws can be taken into account when determining whether the changes need to be made. How much weight can be given to costs to justify age discrimination? We should be finding out the answer to this soon, when the Woodcock case is decided. Recently the Chancellor revealed his plans to extend the country’s austerity programme and it is arguable that cost savings have rarely featured quite so prominently on the political agenda. Read the rest of this entry »
Beckmann and Martin pension rights – a recap
22 November 2011 Rudi Pickup
So-called Beckmann and Martin pension rights are still a bit of a nuisance on transactions when a business is sold out from a company. On the sale, the employees and their rights transfer under the TUPE regime. Normally pension rights don’t get dragged along, but the Beckmann and Martin cases suggested that employees’ rights to early retirement or enhancements which are contingent on dismissal – for example on a redundancy exercise following an outsourcing or acquisition, as in Beckmann – would do. The reason is that rights which do not relate to old-age, invalidity or survivors’ benefits, do transfer under the normal TUPE rules. Read the rest of this entry »
