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Coffee Morning – Got a DB Surplus? ..Who owns it?? CPD included
Type – Online Teams
When – Tuesday 3rd March at 10:30 am
You are cordially invited to attend our next Coffee Morning.
Hywel Robinson, our speaker recently wrote this…
The question “who does a pension surplus belong to?” has no right answer. First, scheme rules vary hugely.
Some will clearly require surplus on wind-up to be paid to the employer, others that it must be used to enhance benefits (perhaps within limits, perhaps not). If there is a discretion, it can be exercisable by the employer (who may or may not be a fiduciary) or the trustees.
How wind-up is triggered can also be an important consideration. Where trustees have a discretion, there is a tendency to assume they must favour members, but if anything the steer goes the other way. Caselaw encourages trustees to consider where the surplus came from (and of course in many cases the lion’s share will have been funded by the employer).
Overall though it’s about trustees considering what is fair and reasonable in all the circumstances. Lawyers often answer questions with “it depends”. Because so often it does.
We are delighted that legal pensions guru Hywel Robinson will be joining us from Temple Bright together with Rosalind Connor.
The key discussion points are:
- Who owns DB pension surplus?
- If trustees have a discretion, how should they exercise it?
- How will the Pension Schemes Bill change this?
To register please add to your Calendar and click HERE on the day OR click the Teams link below.
If you are an Adviser, Trustee or Scheme Sponsor….this could be one for you.
Hywel Robinson has over 30 years experience in pensions law and is a partner at Temple Bright. He was Chair of the Association of Pension Lawyers from 2019 – 2024. Before Temple Bright he was owner of Clifford Chance.
We hope you can join.
Platform
MicrosoftTeams
Url
https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/3583057149466?p=oqYZVGhmHGvakvrLdo
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Interesting and valuable topic. In the states, we have fiddled around with this issue, where Congress ultimately decided that the plan sponsor didn’t own all of the surplus, by assessing a 50% excise tax on any reversions.
The outcome? Employers did what they could to limit the funding of their pension plans.
That limit became part of other requirements designed to minimize the revenue loss from the tax preference provided to retirement plans. That only changed in the last two decades when Congress apparently decided they should be more concerned about underfunded plans than overfunded plans.
And the result?
40 years ago? 89 of the 100 largest employers had defined benefit plans which were not frozen or terminated – allowing new participants, accruing benefits. Today? . Today, less than 15.