Tipping Point For Consolidation? The Month In Pensions - June 2020

• Published date: 01 July 2020
• Subject Matter: Employment and HR, Coronavirus (COVID-19), Retirement, Superannuation & Pensions, Government Measures, Employment and Workforce Wellbeing
• Law Firm: Gowling WLG
• Author: Mr Ian Chapman-Curry and Christopher Stiles

The Month In Pensions looks at the key developments in the UK pensions industry over the previous month.

For June 2020, we focus on options available to pension scheme trustees and employers in distress and the new insolvency regime in an interview with Christopher Stiles and examine The Pension Regulator's (TPR) latest announcements on COVID-19, the Financial Conduct Authority's package of measures on defined benefit transfers and transfer advice and TPR's interim guidance regime for the emerging superfund pension market. We also look forward to some of the developments to expect in July 2020.

Download the PDF: The Month in Pensions - Keeping you on the cutting edge of developments in pensions [June 2020]

Transcript

Tipping point for consolidation?

The Month In Pensions - June 2020

Hello, and welcome to the Month In Pensions for June 2020, brought to you by the pensions team at Gowling WLG. 

I'm Ian Chapman-Curry and I'll be looking at one the themes that has excited the pensions industry in June before taking you through the key points of this month's main legal and policy pensions developments. 

I'll then be joined by Christopher Stiles, a partner in the pensions team, to discuss his latest Insights on:

• The Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill 2020; and
• Pensions solutions for distressed defined benefit schemes and/or employers.

We'll then take a look at what is coming down the tracks for the industry in July 2020.

Theme for June 2020 - Tipping point for consolidation?

Sometimes ideas generate a lot of noise and fury and then disappear. Sometimes, ideas take root and flourish. In the early 2010s, two ideas promised to change workplace pension savings. One was automatic enrolment and the other was defined ambition. Auto-enrolment is now embedded as a key part of the pensions landscape in the UK. Defined ambition? Not so much. At least, not under this name.

As we sit at the beginning of this decade, two more ideas promise to shake up the pensions industry. They both take the idea of consolidation and apply it respectively to defined benefit schemes (in the form of superfunds) and defined contribution arrangements (in the form of collective defined contribution (CDC)). This month, The Pensions Regulator (TPR) issued interim guidance on superfunds, opening the door to the first transactions in this space. CDC already has an employer backing it in the form of Royal Mail.

So, where will we find ourselves in ten years' time? Will we look back and see...