Pensions

We act for all parties in the pensions field: employers, actuaries, consultants, employees, trustees of group schemes and pension providers. We advise on private and public sector schemes, personal pension schemes, final salary schemes, money purchase schemes, contracted-out schemes, insured schemes, small self-administered schemes and unapproved schemes as well as on

• international pensions issues
• pensions disputes 
• compliance 
• investment agreements

As well as advising employers on pension arrangements generally, the team is often involved in advising on the impact of companies pension schemes in company acquisitions, disposals, reorganisations and restructurings (including in the context of possible insolvency).

The team also has particular expertise in the charity sector, through its work with individual charities and its membership of the Charity Finance Directors' Group, who helped produce 'The Charity Pensions Maze'.

Should disputes arise, the team is experienced in handling cases both before the Pensions Ombudsman and the courts.

For more information, please contact:
penny.cogher@speechlys.com

Experience

Investment manager
Advising an investment manager on the way to structure a residential property fund to make it a suitable investment for small self-administered pension schemes and applied to HMRC for approval.

Pension scheme trustees
Reviewing investment management agreements to ensure they are suitable for pension scheme trustees to sign.

Demutualisation
Advising on the demutualisation of a major insurance company, particularly with regard to the negotiation with the Inland Revenue of the compensation payments for loss of membership rights.

Personal pensions
Advising on an investment product whereby property could be held in a SIP using a unit trust/OIEC structure.

Expatriate pensions
Advising on an executive pension product for US expatriates in the UK which is tax efficient in both the UK and USA.

City law firm
Winding-up a final salary scheme that closed some time ago. It had 10 active members and a funding deficit. The trustees agreed funding terms with the employer in exchange for allowing the winding-up to go ahead without using their power to defer it.

Electrical products company
Solving the section 67 problems for a client where the scheme rules had been substantially rewritten but those involved were no longer available to confirm that no accrued rights had been adversely affected.

International plant and equipment hire company
The closure of the company's final salary scheme to new members and replacing it with a group stakeholder scheme. This raised trustee issues including trustee discretions; communications with members; trustees standard of care; conflicts of interest. It also raised employment issues including interpreting the contract of employment; constructive dismissal; employers duty not to damage relationship of trust and confidence.

Charity
Advising a charity on the complex pensions issues arising from the decentralisation of its organisation into a separate branch structure.