Legal News

On 29 September 2025, Unite branded it ‘scandalous’ that the Pension Protection Fund ( PPF) reserves have kept swelling while older people are left in penury. Under the PPF and its sister scheme, the Financial Assistance Scheme ( FAS), benefits accrued before 1997 are not protected against inflation. Unite argued this means anyone whose pension was accumulated before that year receives only 50% of its real value in real terms overall, in practice......

In this issue: Investment Boundary between guidance and advice Public sector pensions Dates for your diary Trackers Trackers Investment Pensions UK issues technical guidance on updated vote reporting template to better assist trustees track investment voting Pensions UK has released comprehensive technical guidance to accompany the industry’s standardised shareholder vote reporting template, originally produced in March 2025 alongside the Financial Conduct Authority ( FCA) and the industry-led Vote Reporting Group ( VRG). Expanding on the FAQs published in March 2025, the guidance offers granular, field-by-field clarifications for asset managers, proxy advisers and asset owners, covering data requirements, formatting and interpretation. Pensions UK confirms updates have been made to the template since March 2025 and advises all users to review both the revised template and the full guidance. The final template, built by the industry for the industry, centres on the VRG...

WIM’s collapse ranks among the UK fund management industry’s most notable and widely reported disasters. Its repercussions still influence regulatory focus and the confidence and trust of investors across the market. See: FCA publishes Decision Notices against Neil Woodford and Woodford Investment Management over liquidity management failures in WEIF, LNB News 05/08/2025 32. Background Woodford set up WIM in 2014, unveiling the headline Woodford Equity Income Fund amid heavy publicity. At that point, he was widely seen as a star stockpicker, after substantial success during his tenure at Invesco Perpetual. In 2019, as anxieties about illiquidity rose and large outflows hit the portfolio, WIM halted investor redemptions. Roughly 300,000 savers found themselves unable to access their money, sparking public anger and intense media attention. The fund stopped dealings in June 2019 and was later placed into wind-up. The failure left hundreds of thousands bearing...

Ministry of Justice ( Mo J) On 30 September 2025, the Ministry of Justice ( Mo J) revealed it had found at least 500 cases where the appropriate level of pension contributions was not collected from members of the judiciary. It has begun a consultation on new regulations that would permit it to recover the unpaid sums, either via a lump-sum payment or by making further deductions from salary or pension income. In its consultation statement, it said the amendments are intended to expand the range of powers available to the Ministry of Justice to obtain pension contributions from members of the judicial pension schemes. The mistakes arose when either a judicial office-holder was not correctly enrolled into the judicial pension scheme, or when a cap on pensionable earnings was applied incorrectly to a member of the scheme......

Pensions Ombudsman determination: Mr D ( CAS-81940- Z2S8) —26 August 2025 What are the practical implications of this determination? The determination outlines the Ombudsman’s view that, before the Transfer Regulations 2021 ( SI 2021/1237) took effect, trustees of transferring occupational schemes managing statutory transfers under the Pension Schemes Act 1993 ( PSA 1993): had no legislative or regulatory obligation to undertake the due diligence described in TPR’s 2013 Action Pack (‘ Pension liberation fraud: the predators stalking pension transfers’) or to give members TPR’s 2013 Scorpion Leaflet (‘ Predators stalk your pension’); and owed no general duty of care, in tort or equity, to advise members on their scheme rights or the suitability of transferring benefits, nor, by extension, to enquire into the circumstances of a transfer or the nature of the receiving scheme beyond statutory...

What are the most significant changes introduced by the Act that pension scheme trustees need to prepare for? The most notable reforms in the Act that trustees should be ready for are: Data subject complaints: complaints about the handling of personal data must be acknowledged within 30 days and answered without undue delay. ICO enforcement powers: the Information Commissioner’s Office ( ICO) now has authority to compel interviews and require the production of documents to assess compliance. Data subject access requests ( DSARs): the Act codifies the ICO’s existing guidance, meaning (i) trustees must apply a ‘reasonable and proportionate’ search standard when responding; and (ii) the ‘stop the clock’ rule pauses the one-month deadline for a response. Automated decision making ( ADM): the Act allows reliance on the full set of lawful bases — including ‘legitimate interests’ — when...

In this issue: Pension Schemes Bill The Pensions Regulator The Pension Protection Fund Taxation Members and benefits Public sector pensions Dates for your diary Trackers Pension Schemes Bill New version of Pension Schemes Bill published incorporating Public Bill Committee amendments A refreshed iteration of the Pension Schemes Bill, reflecting changes made by the House of Commons Public Bill Committee, was released on 18 September 2025. Every government-backed amendment tabled during Committee Stage was approved and now appears in the updated text, including fresh clauses responding to the Virgin Media decision that permit retrospective confirmation of alterations that might otherwise be void. None of the non-government proposals succeeded, though the government indicated it will introduce amendments at a subsequent stage to remove the Pension Protection Fund administration levy (a proposal by John MIlne MP seeking this outcome was withdrawn as ‘unworkable’ in its current form). The Committee commenced its line-by-line...

EFAMA argued that distributed ledger technology ( DLT) can effectively remove current growth hurdles created by fragmentation across capital markets where shares and bonds are traded. DLT is a digital, distributed method of recording financial transactions at the same time in multiple different locations. It also lets issuers tokenise assets into transferable digital tokens and accelerates settlement by applying uniform procedures throughout the EU. Businesses participating in an EU‑wide DLT pilot are urging a shift towards a modernised, permanent legal regime, to foster competition and create a fairer level playing field with conventional finance. “ A large number of European companies from across the value chain have invested heavily in DLT and are at the forefront of the financial sector’s digital shift,” said Tanguy van de Werve, EFAMA’s director general. “ These initiatives ought to be matched at......

An IFS report issued on 17 September 2025 confirms that lifting the state pension age helps the government relieve pressure on public finances already strained by an ageing population. However, the evidence shows the impact of higher retirement ages has not been shared evenly across groups. The IFS found that women who were not in work in their late 50s were particularly affected by the rise from 60 to 66 that took place between 2010–20. On average, these women see a larger fall in income as a result of the increases, the research reported. They are also more likely to have low incomes and to be in poor health or have a disability. Heidi Karjalainen, Senior, said that women already out of paid work by their late fifties—often in poor health and on low incomes—rarely return to paid employment in response to a higher state...

Original news Ms N ( CAS-74047- R0M5)—26 May 2025 Summary The Pensions Ombudsman found in favour of a complainant over a delayed pension transfer. She was awarded redress for significant distress and inconvenience. However, no payment was made for financial loss, as the Ombudsman was unconvinced about how she would have invested the proceeds, and because applying statutory interest to the transfer would have produced a figure below the actual transfer value. The outcome serves as a reminder that, in pension transfer delay cases, a member must demonstrate and quantify any financial loss... What were the facts? Ms N was a member of the BNLA ( Citibank) Unit Linked Executive Pension Plan (the ‘ Scheme’). Her former husband, Mr N, was a trustee director of the Scheme......

Summary The Deputy Pensions Ombudsman dismissed a complaint concerning entitlement to benefits. The Scheme had paid a contributions equivalent premium for one spell of employment, and it was implausible that a refund of the member’s contributions was not processed at the same time. Regarding a different employment period, there was no proof that the complainant was an active participant in the Scheme; this was consistent with him paying standard National Insurance contributions rather than the reduced rate ordinarily associated with membership of a contracted-out arrangement. The decision serves as a reminder that the burden rests with the individual to evidence scheme membership. What were the facts? Mr Y was a member of the NHS Pension Scheme (the Scheme). The Scheme was operated on a contracted-out basis......

What are the practical implications of this case? The central question on this appeal was whether the pension drawdowns were ‘paid in consideration of employment’. HMRC argued that moving occupational pension entitlements to a SIPP, essentially an investment product that does not require employment as a condition, severed the necessary link to the original employment and meant the pension could be taxed in the UK. As many of the UK’s DTCs with other jurisdictions include wording similar to the UK– Portugal DTC, the outcome may have significant consequences for expats whose situations resemble that of the appellant. The First-tier Tribunal Tax ( FTT) offers helpful clarification of the principles to be applied when deciding whether there is a sufficiently strong connection between an expat’s pension withdrawals and their former employment in such cases......

Pensions UK issued its reply to the Business and Trade Committee’s inquiry into Financing the Real Economy on 12 September 2025, stating that a shortage of viable opportunities, delays in planning, and inadequate financial incentives constrain the sector’s ability to act as an investor in domestic growth assets. The parliamentary Business and Trade Committee launched an inquiry on 4 August 2025 to consider how to attract additional investment to the UK......

FCA figures indicate the amount of cash taken out rose 35.9% year on year, from £52.2m during the financial year ending March 2024. Over the same period, the number of pension pots first accessed climbed by 8.6%, moving from 885,455 to 961,575 in total. Rob Hillock, Head of Personal Finance Planning at consultancy Broadstone, said the numbers signalled a “significant surge” in savers drawing on their pensions. “ Although demographics imply progressively larger sums of pension wealth will be tapped year-on-year, the scale of 2025’s leap hints that further behavioural shifts could also be materially influencing outcomes,” Hillock added. “ Changes like bringing pension assets within inheritance tax could be prompting more savers to use their pension sooner, or to front‑load their withdrawals”......

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...

In a survey released on 11 September 2025, accountancy group BDO reported that companies were actively preparing for significant disruption as the government readies a substantial package of fiscal measures for the formal Budget statement to Parliament, scheduled for 26 November 2025. Industry rumours within the sector have intensified that ministers could scrap the National Insurance ( NI) relief applied to salary sacrifice arrangements for both employers and employees. BDO engaged polling firm Censuswide to question 505 C-suite leaders at mid-market businesses in August 2025 about their expectations for the forthcoming changes. The research indicated that 49% considered curbs on salary sacrifice schemes quite likely, while 45%......

Original news Ms N ( CAS-124815- S6D7)—26 May 2025 Summary The Pensions Ombudsman upheld a complaint concerning a delayed pension transfer. The complainant was awarded compensation for significant distress and inconvenience. However, she was not awarded compensation for financial loss because the Pensions Ombudsman was not persuaded about how she would have invested the transfer, and adding statutory interest to the transfer yielded a sum lower than the actual transfer value. This decision serves as a reminder that, in a pension transfer delay case, a member must evidence financial loss. What were the facts? Ms N was a member of the Scottish Widows Executive Pension Plan (the Scheme). Ms N’s ex‑husband ( Mr N) was the trustee director of the Scheme in this specific case......

Original news Mr Y ( CAS-99766- L5X6)—30 April 2025 Summary The Pensions Ombudsman dismissed a grievance concerning discretionary uprating of pensions. A scheme newsletter had explained its intention to award RPI-linked rises, capped at 10% for members. The employer declined to approve inflation‑matching uplifts, arguing this was necessary to safeguard the Scheme’s long‑term financial position and stability. The Ombudsman concluded that the Scheme had applied the governing rules appropriately and in accordance with them. It further decided the employer’s refusal to grant any uplift was neither perverse nor irrational in the circumstances. The decision underscores the importance of robust due process whenever such determinations are made. What were the facts? Mr Y was a member of the Smiths Industries Pension Scheme (the Scheme)......

On 11 September 2025, Pensions Minister Torsten Bell informed the Public Bill Committee that Plaid Cymru MP Ann Davies’s new clauses 18 and 19 to the Pension Schemes Bill ‘would not work’. The tabled proposals were intended to ensure that compensation paid through the PPF and the FAS to people with pension rights built up before 1997 would be uprated with inflation, mirroring the treatment applied to post‑1997 benefits. The amendments further suggested that those receiving compensation via the FAS should be paid arrears for the annual increases they ought to have received as a result of these adjustments. The FAS......

Zubarev and another v Singh and others [2025] EWHC 2242 ( Ch) What are the practical implications of this case? This ruling supplies practical direction on how a judgment creditor can pursue recovery from a debtor by accessing the debtor’s personal pension at a stage when the member’s benefits remain uncrystallised. The creditors’ strategy was twofold: first, to seek a third party debt order under CPR Part 72; and second, to obtain an order under SCA 1981, s 37 compelling the debtor to take every step required to crystallise their interests under the relevant pension arrangements, thereby creating an entitlement to a monetary payment to which the third party debt order could attach. The court held that, in this setting, a section 37 order is not merely auxiliary; rather, it is the mechanism by which scheme assets can, to the extent...