We have substantial experience of all aspects of pensions law and practice, including:
Transactional/regulatory
- Advising on the pension aspects of a wide range of corporate transactions, from acquisitions of FTSE listed companies to smaller deals where pension risk can be a potential deal breaker.
- Advising on the pensions aspects of restructuring, acting for businesses, insolvency practitioners, lenders and investors. We work to ensure that pension issues and the complex regulatory environment are navigated in an effective and commercial way.
- Advising on deals where pension liabilities have been apportioned to another group company with the agreement of the pension trustees, including advising alongside another leading City pensions practice on a groundbreaking flexible apportionment arrangement structure.
- Advising on the Pensions Regulator’s powers and clearance applications including dealing with regulatory requests and enforcement, and practical steps to reduce risk exposure without seeking clearance.
Scheme advisory
- Advising employers and trustees of trust-based pension schemes including defined benefit, career average and defined contribution schemes. We understand the challenges facing employers and trustees and have advised on scheme strategy, scheme closures, funding and recovery plan negotiations, contingent assets, escrow arrangements and conflicts of interest. We also deal with all the usual day to day queries, legal compliance and updating and amending scheme documents.
- Dealing with multi-employer schemes where significant exit debts can be triggered. We can help negotiate exits and risk mitigation strategies in relation to such schemes.
- Advising employers and trustees in a wide range of sectors including banking and financial services, charity, retail, leisure, transport, and manufacturing.
Public sector pension schemes
- Advising on all the main public sector pension schemes (including the LGPS, NHSPS, PCSPS and TPS) together with the various other smaller public sector schemes.
- Advising public sector employers, service providers and Third Sector employers on public sector pension issues, with particular experience advising on the transfer of staff from the public sector, the Fair Deal on Staff Transfers policy and the associated allocation of risk. We have advised on the pensions aspects of a groundbreaking spin-out of over 1,000 staff from a local authority to a newly formed charity as part of switching to a strategic commissioning council model. Our experience advising on both sides of such transfers means we are well placed to guide service providers and charities to a practical solution when negotiating with the public sector. In particular, we can help minimise risk exposure while addressing the concerns of the other side.
Automatic enrolment and mastertrusts
- Advising on automatic enrolment strategy and the practical detail of implementation, including advising on assessing your workforce and changing existing pension benefits to fit with automatic enrolment. We have experience advising some of the largest employers to implement automatic enrolment including advising one of the UK’s largest cinema chains on this process. We can use this experience to support smaller employers with implementation.
- Reviewing and advising on the terms of a number of mastertrust structures established to deal with automatic enrolment including NOW:Pensions and The People’s Pension.
Pensions disputes
- Advising on the full range of contentious pensions issues, for trustees, employers, scheme members and professional advisers. We represent clients in all the main dispute resolution and regulatory arenas, including the courts, the Pensions Ombudsman, the Pensions Regulator and the PPF.
SIPP and SSAS
- Advising on self-invested personal pensions (SIPP) and small self-administered schemes (SSAS) including advising providers, employers and individuals on such schemes.
Supporting law firms
We support a number of other City law firms without pensions expertise on pensions-related matters on an ongoing basis. We structure our relationship with each law firm and their clients in the most appropriate way to meet the needs of the parties involved.
Our Pensions team is Rosalind Connor, Ian D’Costa, Deborah Latimer, Hywel Robinson and Comron Rowe.
You can initiate a discussion about instructing us by contacting any partner directly, or by using the main office contact details at the bottom of the page if you prefer.