Hywel Robinson

Hywel has over 30 years’ experience advising on all aspects of Pensions, including employer and trustee advisory work, the impact of transactions and restructuring, funding, Pensions Regulator involvement, investment (including investment management, funds, insurance and derivatives), litigation, disputes and tax. He has particular expertise in handling complex or difficult pension negotiations between corporates and trustees. He joined Clifford Chance in the City in 1994, becoming a partner in 2004 and serving as the firm’s head of pensions from 2011 to 2025 before joining Temple Bright. Hywel has been consistently ranked in directories as a leading individual in pensions law over many years and is a former chair of the Association of Pension Lawyers.

Experience

Relevant experience at Temple Bright and previous firms includes:

• Advising on the public takeover of a major UK engineering company, followed by the restructuring of its pension arrangements and the demerger and listing of its automotive business.
• Representing Save the Children in the 2025 Pensions Trust litigation.
• Long term advice to the trustee of the pension scheme of a UK appliance manufacturer, including funding arrangements, the impact of group takeover and other corporate activity, benefit change, investment and disputes.
• Advising over a 30 year period on the pension arrangements of a multinational hygiene and forest products company, including closure, the split of the business into different listed groups, and its £1bn plus buy-in.
• Advising multinational shipping companies on a wide range of pension issues, including exposure to industry-wide schemes, pension restructuring and in one case cessation of UK operations.
• Advice to a group of unassociated employers in the transport sector on an industry wide funding settlement.
• Advising a large UK hospitality company on its pension plans, including litigation in the High Court and its £1bn plus insured buy-in.
• Advising numerous insurers and reinsurers on buy-ins, buyouts and longevity transactions with UK schemes, including many of the important developments in the UK pension risk transfer market and most recently advising a US-based reinsurer on a series of longevity risk transfer transactions (the largest of their kind).