Trusteeship, Governance & Documentation Services
As a pension scheme trustee you’re always under pressure to balance the interests of members and corporate sponsors. Our Pensions team uses its experience to ease this pressure, ensuring trustees remain confident of fulfilling their obligations.
Being a trustee of a pension scheme is an important role and one that comes with a great deal of responsibility. Balancing the duties owed to members with those owed to the corporate sponsor is an arduous task.
As a result, having dedicated trustee governance measures and accurate, up to date documentation in place is now a pre-requisite to running a successful scheme. In the heavily regulated pensions world this promotes transparency in decision making in addition to healthy debate and discussion. Above all else it helps to manage the inherent risks and conflicts of interest in pension schemes as well as reducing the risk of costly litigation due to drafting errors and ambiguities.
Our Pensions & Employee Benefits team has extensive experience in this area and currently advises the trustee boards of over 30 occupational defined benefit pension schemes, as well as many defined contribution arrangements.
In addition to specific legal advice, we keep our clients informed with regular e-bulletins, seminars and workshops covering the latest issues and trends relating to pensions.
PLEASE NOTE: Our independent trustee company – Wedlake Bell Pension Trustees Limited – is available to act as trustee in appropriate cases.
Experience
- Advising on confidentiality requirements stemming from sensitive price information where a corporate takeover was proposed.
- Advice on employer covenant monitoring to a UK scheme whose overseas parent was the subject of a bank rescue.
- Advice on the Pension Regulator's Codes of Practice and Guidance where a historic investigation had been instigated against the trustees.
- Advising on scheme constitutions including use of trustee sub-committees and joint employer/trustee working parties.
- Advising trustees on the employer dept regulations and apportionment arrangements.
- Consolidation of a pension schemes' trust deed and rules taking account of over 20 amending deeds including preparation of 'plain English' reference guide for the trustees.
- Revision of a member booklet to explain salary sacrifice arrangements.
- Coordinating and drafting member communications for an actuarial equivalence exercise.
- Advising trustee boards on employer proposals to amend benefits.
Bulletins
Ombudsman gets tough on poor administration
The Pension Ombudsman has directed that a professional trustee company pay £2,000 to compensate a member for the significant distress and inconvenience caused by its maladministration in relation to a… Read more →
Bulletins
Streamlining how disputes are dealt with
As the legal adviser to many trustee boards and many employer bodies alike we see it as part of our job to help keep our clients away from complaints and… Read more →
Bulletins
Legality of employer decisions
In this article Employment Partner Blair Adams and Pensions Partner Clive Weber jointly comment on the important Court of Appeal decision in IBM v Dalgleish on 3 August 2017 (IBM Decision)… Read more →
Bulletins
TPR launches its first prosecution for failure to auto-enrol staff
Automatic enrolment (“auto-enrolment”) – a familiar phrase Every employer should now be familiar with these words. Auto-enrolment. Auto-enrolment was introduced five years ago, in October 2012, and was talked about… Read more →