Law firm Eversheds, financial adviser Sedgwick Noble Lowndes and consultancy firm Mercer are facing potential legal action from the pension trustees of the Britannia Building Society, reports The Lawyer.
Read full story here: Pensions time bomb threatens A&O, Eversheds
Summary of The Lawyer report:
Employee Benefit’s sister title The Lawyer has reported that the pension trustees of the Britannia Building Society Pension Scheme have filed a High Court claim, which has not yet been served, alleging that Eversheds, along with financial adviser Sedgwick Noble Lowndes and consultancy firm Mercer, gave negligent advice when the scheme equalised the benefits for men and women in the 1990s.
Following the 1990 European Court of Justice ruling in Barber v Guardian Royal Exchange Assurance Group, it became a legal requirement for schemes to equalise the retirement ages for men and women.
A number of recent cases, such as Foster Wheeler v Hanley & Ors (2008), have found, equalisation was not always done correctly. This has resulted in schemes having to meet large unfunded liabilities, with trustees now mulling whether to take legal action against the original advisers.
Separately, Allen & Overy is facing action from the trustees of the Centrica Pension Plan and the 11 companies that fund it. The High Court Claim, which has been filed but not served, claims that the firm was negligent when drafting documentation between 2001 and 2004.