Practice areas

An increasingly significant force in UK pension provision, the Pensions Regulator is a statutory body set up in order to protect benefits, to reduce the risk of compensation becoming payable from the Pension Protection Fund and to promote good scheme administration. It has a bewildering range of powers, including the ability to:

• extend liability for funding a pension scheme to parties (including individuals) that are associated or connected with the employer;
• approve corporate transactions under its clearance process;
• set scheme funding;
• terminate accrual or wind-up a scheme; and
• appoint and remove trustees from office.

At Macfarlanes, we have a wealth of experience of advising trustees, corporate groups, private equity houses, banks and other investors in dealing with the Pensions Regulator in relation to a wide variety of situations and transactions.  These have included valuation negotiations, mergers and acquisitions, public to private transactions, restructurings, pension liability transfers and disinvestment from the UK.

We advised on the first clearance statement to be issued by the Pensions Regulator and are advising on the first scheme funding dispute to proceed to the Determinations Panel.