New amendments to Virgin Media clauses in pension Bill

New amendments have today been tabled to the Pension Schemes Bill, including changes made by the Secretary of State to the clauses which remedy the problems caused by Virgin Media decision. Most of those changes are relatively minor. The only three of any substance are:

• Gov 58, which amends the definition of “positive action” that will trigger the exclusion of the scheme from the remedial provisions, so that any step taken by the scheme trustees or managers to alter benefit payments, after deciding that an alteration is void for non-compliance with reg.42, will not qualify as positive action unless it has been notified to the scheme members in writing;

• Gov 59, which defines the “qualifying legal proceedings” that will also trigger the exclusion of the scheme from the remedial provisions (of which more below); and

• Gov 86, which changes the commencement date of these provisions to the date of the Royal Assent of the Bill, rather than 2 months after Royal Assent as originally proposed.

Two points to note about the new definition of qualifying legal proceedings are that:

• the proceedings must be to determine a dispute as to the rules of the scheme, which means that proceedings where the reg.42 issue is ancillary (such as professional negligence proceedings) will not qualify; and

• the proceedings must be brought before a UK court, so that proceedings before a tribunal or on a complaint to the Pensions Ombudsman also will not qualify.

Those changes can be seen at pp.74-75 and 83 of the Amendment Paper, which can be found here.