“Descendants of Josiah Wedgwood, the 18th-century pottery manufacturer, have called on the Government to intervene to prevent the selling off of the Wedgwood Museum.”
Daily Telegraph, 9th January 2012
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
“Public sector union Unison is being investigated by the ASA after three advertisements it placed in the national press were described as ‘misleading’ and ‘inaccurate.’ ”
Daily Telegraph, 5th January 2012
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
“The Government is pressing ahead with legislation to enact its controversial public sector pension reform in the new year, even though an agreement has not been reached with unions to end the bitter dispute.”
The Independent, 20th December 2011
Source: www.indpendent.co.uk
“Loans between pension schemes are ‘unauthorised payments’ which cannot be used as a way of unlocking pension capital before a scheme member retires, the High Court has ruled.”
OUT-LAW.com, 21st December 2011
Source: www.out-law.com
“Britain is set to lose a world-renowned museum following a high court ruling which could force it to sell its collection to pay off a £134m pension deficit. The Wedgwood Museum in Stoke-on-Trent faces being forced to sell its historic collection of china, masterpieces by Stubbs, Romney and Reynolds, and an archive linked to the nation’s social and industrial history. Judges in Birmingham ruled that the pottery collection owned by the museum was an asset of Waterford Wedgwood Potteries, which went bust in 2009. The collection can now be sold to pay off creditors, the largest of which is the Pension Protection Fund.”
The Guardian, 19th December 2011
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
“New rules cracking down on companies who ‘bribe’ staff approaching retirement age into taking cash payments in exchange for lower pension payouts will be in place by next summer, the Pensions Minister will say today.”
Daily Telegraph, 6th December 2011
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
A recession tends to lead to more claims but fewer trials. Employees naturally look for ways to maximise the value of their claims – particularly by reference to causes of action that bust the cap for a ‘vanilla’ unfair dismissal – often (in the case of high value employees) by reference to the whistleblowing legislation. The ‘bar’ for what qualifies for protection as a whistleblowing disclosure is set relatively low, and an employee dismissed from (say) employment in the financial services sector can usually identify something he or she has said in the recent past that can be held out as ‘revealing’ the employer’s true motivation for dismissing and/or as supporting a section 103A claim. On the flip side, recessions may give employers greater scope for ‘Polkey Chance’ arguments – market uncertainty undermines security of employment, and even if the employee has been unfairly dismissed now, who is to say that he or she would still have been in post in a year’s time?
Full story (PDF)
11 KBW, 10th November 2011
Source: www.11kbw.com
Copple and others v Littlewoods plc and others [2011] EWCA Civ 1281; [2011] WLR (D) 319
“Where an employer’s pension scheme indirectly discriminated against part-timers on the ground of sex by denying them access to the scheme, a female part-time worker was not entitled to any remedy arising from her exclusion from the scheme if she would not in fact have chosen to join the scheme even if she had been eligible to do so.”
WLR Daily, 8th November 2011
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
“A High Court test case has been launched to tackle the ‘biggest robbery’ from the pension payouts to British pensioners, unions have claimed. The head of Britain’s largest civil service union sets out the case against the change in pension indexation from the retail price index to the consumer price index.”
Daily Telegraph, 25th October 2011
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
“Public-sector unions will today open up a new front in their battle with the Government over pension reform with a legal challenge to recently introduced rules over the way annual increases are calculated.”
The Independent, 24th October 2011
Source: www.independent.co.uk
“The Court of Appeal has upheld a landmark ruling that gives priority to company pensioners – ahead of creditor banks and bondholders – when those companies become insolvent.”
The Independent, 14th October 2011
Source: www.independent.co.uk
“Plans to raise the state pension age to 66 in 2020 will be delayed by six months to address concerns thousands of women will be unfairly disadvantaged.”
BBC News, 13th October 2011
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
“An employer cannot rely ‘blindly’ on its medical advisers when deciding if an employee is eligible for an ill-health early retirement pension, the pensions watchdog has said.”
OUT-LAW.com, 10th October 2011
Source: www.out-law.com
“The levy paid into a special fund by pension schemes to pay compensation to their members should the scheme go insolvent has been reduced for the next three years, the fund organisers have announced.”
OUT-LAW.com, 23rd September 2011
Source: www.out-law.com
“The two largest civil service unions have lost their High Court challenge to a scheme that will reduce benefits paid to members on redundancy and early retirement.”
The Guardian, 10th August 2011
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
“Equilibrium of assets and liabilities was not a requirement of the definition of a money purchase pension scheme under section 181 of the Pension Schemes Act 1993.”
WLR Daily, 27th July 2011
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
“The bereaved husband of a doctor has undertaken a legal test case claiming sex discrimination because he is receiving a smaller NHS pension than if he were a widow.”
Daily Telegraph, 29th July 2011
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
“The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) is set to redraft pensions legislation after defeat in a key pensions case in the Supreme Court this morning.”
The Lawyer, 27th July 2011
Source: www.thelawyer.com
“British Gurkhas are taking their battle for equal pension rights to the European Court of Human Rights, it was announced today.”
The Independent, 20th June 2011
Source: www.independent.co.uk
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