As a contentious lawyer, I tend not to be involved in pensions issues when everything is going smoothly – my phone normally rings when trustees or employers are facing a problem of reasonable magnitude. I often wish that I had been involved at an earlier stage, at the point that the problem was (or could have been) first identified. The long-awaited general code of practice came into force on 28 March 2024 and this provides an excellent opportunity for trustees to review their governance processes. I would encourage trustees to pay attention to the expectations of The Pensions Regulator (TPR ..read more

ERISA and the Internal Revenue Code broadly prohibit transactions between employee benefit plans or Individual Retirement Accounts and certain “parties in interest” or “disqualified persons”. However, certain transactions are exempted from such prohibition. One such exemption applies to transactions involving independent qualified professional asset managers, which includes banks, savings and loan associations, insurance companies and registered investment advisers meeting certain requirements. The U.S. Department of Labor has recently amended the rules of this exemption. My blog explores the ..read more

The rugby Six Nations Championship has been a recent topic of conversation. But do you know how long pensions dashboards have been a topic of conversation? Almost 10 years – ever since the issue was raised in a report by the Financial Conduct Authority in December 2014! We are now about to witness kick-off as the industry prepares to connect pension schemes to the dashboards architecture. Any day now, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will issue guidance setting out a line-up of expected connection dates, split by scheme size and type. Do not be fooled by the word “guidance” – complia ..read more

Changes are afoot to the statutory regime governing special administrations for regulated water companies (the SAR) following the publication of a suite of new legislation. Impact of the changes on pension trustees Further details of the changes are set out in a blog post by restructuring colleagues Helena Clarke and Charlotte Moller. Helena and Charlotte note that perhaps the most significant change for creditors generally, and pension trustees in particular, is the update to the insolvency waterfall to allow for priority payment of government funds. In a nutshell, this means that any f ..read more

This blog post addresses retirement plans that are intended to be tax-qualified under Section 401(a) of the Internal Revenue Code (Code). Specifically, this post will provide information related to: “Coverage Testing” rules under Code Section 410(b) Related “Controlled Group” rules under Code Section 414 Quite often, we see employers, particularly smaller employers, design and implement tax-qualified retirement plans without a basic understanding of how these rules apply to their plans. This results in confusion over if the plan is required to take corrective action under these rules in a pa ..read more

Significant market and interest rate movements over recent years have seen funding positions improve for many defined benefit pension plans across the UK, and in a lot of cases this has resulted in pension plans finding themselves with an unexpected surplus. If sponsors and trustees are not anticipating a surplus, this can lead to uncertainty as to how the surplus should be dealt with. Once money has been paid into a pension plan it becomes subject to the terms and conditions of the plan. These terms may limit the sponsor’s ability to recover surplus money beyond the amount required ultimately ..read more

The investigations into Odey Asset Management and its founder, Crispin Odey, which are currently capturing the headlines in the financial press, tell a familiar story of how fast a financial institution can fall from grace when disaster strikes. Institutional investors (and by extension some retail funds that had been invested in Odey’s strategies) have already caused the suspension of five Odey managed funds. The pattern that we saw in the wake of the Woodford saga of investors fleeing the sinking ship is very familiar, with suspensions of redemptions and finger pointing at the FCA. Unlike i ..read more

According to complaints filed with Action Fraud, more than £30 million has been lost to pension scammers since 2017. All types of pension pots are targeted, with some individual savers losing hundreds of thousands of pounds. Given the current cost of living crisis, more people might feel tempted to access their pension savings, making them more vulnerable to pension scams. This increases the onus on pension trustees to protect their members and has encouraged more trustee boards to make the Pledge.   The Pensions Regulator (TPR)’s Pledge to Combat Pension Scams (the Pledge), launched ..read more

Each year, I have a profound respect and admiration for colleagues and friends who have fasted during Ramadan. It is a very public demonstration of their faith, which clearly also has tremendous personal significance. I was particularly struck this year how LinkedIn was full of supportive comments and suggestions how employers might support those fasting. Are there steps that employers – and trustees – can take to support Muslim employees and members from a pensions perspective? Indeed, is there a positive obligation to do so? As a non-Muslim I am not expert in Sharia law, but as a pensions p ..read more

On 28 April 2022, at 4:35 pm we issued legal advice to our client regarding the GMP conversion exercise for two schemes, along with final versions of the deed of amendment to bring into effect GMP conversion; the Conversion Date was set for 1 May 2022.  At 4:43 pm, we get an e-mail from our professional support lawyer stating that the Pension Schemes (Conversion of Guaranteed Minimum Pensions) Bill, a private member’s bill proposing further changes to the GMP conversion legislation, has just received Royal Assent and is now the Pension Schemes (Conversion of Guaranteed Minimum Pensions ..read more