Pensions

Our barristers offer in-depth advice and representation in all aspects of pensions law such as:

• Pensions legislation
• Amendment & other modification powers
• The interpretation of pension scheme documents
• Equalisation and sex discrimination
• Age discrimination
• Indexation
• Pensions & Insolvency
• The Pension Protection Fund
• The Pensions Regulator’s powers
• Pension scheme mergers & winding-up
• Pensions liberation
• Pensions ombudsman complaints and appeals
• Industry-wide schemes
• Local Government and other public sector schemes
• Rectification
• Equitable mistake
• Improper purposes (‘fraud on a power’)
• Breach of fiduciary duties
• Estoppel in the context of pension schemes
• Beddoe relief, representation orders, orders under section 48 of the Administration of Justice Act 1985 and other applications in the administration of trusts;
• Self-Invested Personal Pension Schemes and other personal pension schemes; and
• Professional negligence

In addition to commercial trust work, some of our practitioners undertake private and charitable trust work for trustees and individuals, often with cross-border / international issues (whether in Dubai, Jersey, Guernsey, Caribbean, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Australian, US or other jurisdictions).

Barristers from Outer Temple Chambers have starred in most of the significant pensions cases of the last decade, including:

• Re: Axminster Carpets
• Re: Britvic (to the Court of Appeal)
• the Silentnight contribution notice proceedings
• the Lloyds Bank GMP litigation
• Safeway v Newton
• Re: Univar
• The 2019 Rail Franchising Litigation
• Recent indexation cases like Atos, Arup and Carr v Thales
• Recent rectification cases like SPS Technologies v Moitt, Re: Blatchford and Re: Colart
• Gleeds v Aon & others (the professional negligence proceedings)
• the Box Clever financial support direction proceedings (to the Court of Appeal)
• Re: BIC UK (to the Court of Appeal)
• the public sector pay cases, like McCloud v Lord Chancellor; Sargeant v LFEPA
• Re: British Telecommunications (the indexation litigation to the Court of Appeal)
• Re: Barnado’s (to the Supreme Court)
• Re: G4S
• Shannan v Viavi (to the Court of Appeal)
• Wedgwood Pension Plan Trustee Ltd v Salt
• the IBM litigation – both the rectification proceedings and the ‘Project Waltz’ proceedings
• Pollock v Reed
• the Carrington Wire contribution notice proceedings
• the Merchant Navy Pension Fund litigation
• the Desmond contribution notice proceedings
• the Lehman Brothers financial support direction proceedings
• the Storm Funding insolvency proceedings
• the Nortel / Lehman insolvency proceedings, Bloom v the Pensions Regulator (to the Supreme Court)
• Re: the Industry-wide Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme
• the Pensions Ombudman v EMC Europe Ltd
• United Dairy Farmers Ltd v NILGOSC
• Danks v Qinetiq
• Dalriada v Faulds
• the Pilots National Pension Fund litigation

Team members are highly ranked in both Chambers & Partners and Legal 500.

Our pensions barristers have a strong track record of successfully negotiating settlements and will work tirelessly to achieve the best outcome for their client.

We offer mediation, arbitration, and early neutral evaluation (ENE) where we provide an impartial assessment of the merits of your case before legal proceedings.

Various members are qualified to practice in other jurisdictions including USA, Ireland, the Middle East, Caribbean jurisdictions, New Zealand and Australia.

Find out more about our global arbitration team here