Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Static, not dynamic: High Court clarifies construction of statutory references to ‘State pension age’ in bridging pensions—Spirit (Legacy) Pension Trustee v Alexis [2025] EWHC 2237 (Ch), England and Wales

Published on: 17 September 2025

Published by a LexisNexis Pensions expert

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Article summary

Spirit (Legacy) Pension Trustee Ltd v Alexis [2025] EWHC 2237 (Ch)

What are the practical implications of this case?

Pension scheme governing instruments frequently cite statutory provisions. Many also contain an explicit interpretation clause clarifying whether statutory citations should, by default, be read as catching subsequent amendments to the legislation, or instead as fixing the reference to the law as it stood when the instrument was executed. The former approach is commonly labelled ‘dynamic’; the latter, ‘static’. In this matter, the Scheme lacked any such clause, leaving the court to determine the proper construction without a built-in presumption either way. The ruling is noteworthy as an instance where a ‘static’ rather than ‘dynamic’ reading was preferred. Although the submissions turned on the particular Scheme, the strands of reasoning may assist in analogous disputes. This dispute centred on how statutory references in the governing documents ought to be understood in the absence of a stated rule, and the court’s analysis offers a route-map for tackling comparable questions about cross-references in scheme rules...

What was the background?

The Scheme included a bridging pension, payable until the member attained ‘State pension age’—a defined expression in the Rule...

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