Legal Guidance and Research / Experts / Rhiannon Barnsley
Rhiannon Barnsley#12210

Rhiannon Barnsley

Shoosmiths
As a Professional Support Lawyer for the Shoosmiths pensions team, I support our lawyers by keeping them up to date with key developments and the implications for clients in a quickly changing industry. I deliver training on key topics, formulate templates and precedents and write the quarterly legal updates that are circulated to clients. I regularly write content for our external website and I am committed to keeping our lawyers and clients up to date with the evolving pensions landscape.

Prior to becoming a Professional Support Lawyer in 2025, I was a client-facing lawyer with a particular focus on advising trustee boards and helping them comply with their duties.

I am a member of the Association of Pension Lawyers and have previously been part of the Education and Seminars sub-committee and the Future Leaders in Pensions sub-committee.

Practice Area

Panel

  • Contributing Author

Qualified Year

  • 2018

Experience

  • Shoosmiths LLP (2026 - Present)
  • Sacker & Partners LLP (2025 - 2026)
  • Arc Pensions Law LLP (2021 - 2025)
  • Macfarlanes LLP (2019 - 2021)
  • Addleshaw Goddard LLP (2018 - 2019)
  • Sidley Austin LLP (2016 - 2018)

Membership

  • Association of Pension Lawyers

Qualification

  • LLB (2015)

Education

  • University of York (2015)

1 Contributions by Rhiannon Barnsley

UK defined benefit occupational pension scheme mergers: bulk transfer rules, trustee due diligence, contracting-out, consultation and section 75 debt timing
PRACTICE NOTES
UK defined benefit occupational pension scheme mergers: bulk transfer rules, trustee due diligence, contracting-out, consultation and section 75 debt timing
This practice note applies solely to defined benefit occupational pension schemes Where employers within the same group run more than one defined benefit occupational pension scheme, bringing them together into a single, larger scheme can deliver a range of potential benefits, such as: reductions in administrative cost and time the prospect of greater investment opportunities arising from one larger pension fund simpler lines of communication between employers, trustees and members That said, mergers can also give rise to legal and technical challenges. Nature of merger In general, a merger entails the bulk transfer of assets, liabilities and members from one or more transferring schemes into a receiving scheme. If a merger is undertaken alongside a partial buy-out, under which an insurance company buys out the pension rights of a specified group of members, similar considerations may apply to the combined merger/buy-out as they do to a pure merger. For further information, see Practice Note: De-risking: pension buy-outs and buy-ins...
Pensions
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