Three pension associations have joined forces in calling on the government to retrospectively validate scheme amendments considered void after a recent Court of Appeal ruling.  

After last week’s ruling in Virgin Media v NTL Pension Trustees II Ltd, the Association of Consulting Actuaries, the Association of Pension Lawyers and the Society of Pension Professionals are jointly calling on the Department for Work and Pensions to make regulations under section 37(2) of the Pension Schemes Act 1993, which gives the secretary of state the power to validate, retrospectively, any scheme amendments that would otherwise be void.   

The associations added that any such regulations would need to have “appropriate safeguards”, in an update sent to their members on Monday.  

Last year, the three organisations formed a working group to engage with the DWP about the ruling that was recently upheld by the Court of Appeal.  

They have now told members that “the department is alive to the issues many schemes face” because of the ruling and that the DWP was considering the implications of the judgment.    

However, “at this stage, the DWP has not indicated what, if any, resolution to the issue it may take”, the organisations noted.  

Last week, a DWP spokesperson told mallowstreet the department would “carefully consider any wider implications for both schemes and scheme members” as it explores the implications of the ruling. 

 

The ruling on Thursday upheld a 2023 High Court judgment. The original judgment was issued because Virgin Media and the NTL trustees sought clarity on whether a 1999 scheme amendment was valid. The courts found it was not, because the parties could not produce written actuarial confirmation that the reference scheme test had been met. This was a requirement under contracting-out law. Many schemes were contracted out of the earnings-related part of the state pension from 1997 until 2016, when the new flat-rate state pension was introduced.