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Avoiding legal and regulatory pitfalls in digital transformation projects
This article first appeared in the September 2024 issue of Financier Worldwide.
United Kingdom | Publication | January 2022
The High Court has once again confirmed that to understand pension scheme documents the courts will focus on the meaning of the words used and attach less weight to the background facts than might be appropriate when interpreting commercial contracts. This is consistent with other recent pensions cases, such as the Court of Appeal’s decision in Britvic PLC v Britvic Pensions.
In De La Rue Plc v De La Rue Pension Trustee Ltd, a careless cross-reference from a deferred revaluation rule into a pension increase rule had created uncertainty about how deferred members’ benefits should be revalued. On a wider interpretation, the rule could be read as giving deferred members a right to the better of statutory revaluation or a scheme-specific revaluation method. Read narrowly, deferred members would only be entitled to statutory revaluation.
Focussing on the wording of the rules, Mr Justice Trower decided that the narrower interpretation (favoured by the scheme employer) was the better interpretation.
This decision confirms once again how critical it is that the utmost care is taken when drafting or amending pension scheme rules to avoid being stuck with unintended benefits. The words used are of paramount importance.
Publication
This article first appeared in the September 2024 issue of Financier Worldwide.
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The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCC Act) received Royal Assent on 24 May 2024 and is generally expected to come into force in autumn this year.
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On 26 July 2024, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) jointly released revised rules in respect of the investments into China’s financial market through the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor and Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (collectively, QFII) regime (the New Rules).
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