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United Kingdom

Renishaw Plc v Ross Trustees Services: corrective construction of pension rules—pragmatic approach to obvious drafting error; money purchase underpin clarified; beyond Britvic categories (Chancery Division, England and Wales)

Published on: 16 July 2025

Published by a LexisNexis Pensions expert
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Renishaw Plc v Ross Trustees Services Ltd and another [2025] EWHC 1445 (Ch) What are the practical implications of this case?

This judgment exemplifies a clause whose wording appears unambiguous, yet, taken in context, plainly reveals a drafting error to any informed reader. A well-established rule of construction permits the court to rectify such mistakes by interpreting the document so it delivers the intended effect, where the correct solution is clear. The Supreme Court confirmed the availability of that approach for pension scheme documents in Barnardo’s v Buckinghamshire [2018] UKSC 55, [2019] I.C.R. 495. Even so, Coulson L.J. remarked in Britvic plc v Britvic Pensions Ltd [2021] EWCA Civ 867, [2021] I.C.R. 1648 that the case law suggests the principle should be confined to situations ‘where something has obviously gone wrong in a description, date, figure or calculation’. Although the judge acknowledged that statement, his own reasoning in this matter does not appear to have been limited by it...

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