The Pensions Brief: February 2021

• Published date: 11 March 2021
• Subject Matter: Employment and HR, Privacy, Retirement, Superannuation & Pensions, Data Protection
• Law Firm: Mayer Brown
• Author: Mr Ian Wright and Katherine Carter

Issues affecting all schemes

Pension Schemes Act 2021

The Act has now received Royal Assent. It introduces important changes including:

• Enhanced Pensions Regulator enforcement powers (including new criminal offences).
• Additional DB scheme funding requirements.
• Changes to transfer rights.
• New climate change-related governance and reporting requirements.
• A structure for a pensions dashboard service.
• A framework for collective money purchase pension schemes.

For more information, please see our legal update. The government plans to consult on regulations implementing the Act's provisions over the course of this year.

Action

Employers and trustees should keep the progress of implementation of the Act's provisions under review.

Data protection - transfers of data to the EEA

Data protection - transfers of data to the EEA

The European Commission (EC) has now published a draft adequacy decision in favour of the UK with the aim of completing the adoption process by 30 June 2021. If the draft adequacy decision is adopted within this timeframe, then when the further transitional period ends, transfers of personal data to and from controllers and processors in the UK and EEA will be able to continue as they do currently, i.e. as if the UK were still an EU member state.

However, if the draft decision is not adopted by 30 June 2021, and no alternative bridging mechanism is put in place, EEA-based third parties will be required to implement an appropriate transfer mechanism under the EU GDPR for transfers of personal data to the UK after that date (although UK pensions schemes would be able to transfer personal data to the EEA without additional transfer mechanisms). If this were to be the case, trustees would need to take steps to ensure transfer mechanisms required under the EU GDPR are put in place with EEA-based third parties.

For more information, please see our legal update.

Actio...