With an additional seven million people now in pension savings as a result of automatic enrolment, HR professionals need access to high quality strategic legal advice on their pension arrangements more than ever before.

We help clients navigate the complexities of auto-enrolment at one end of the spectrum and tax allowances for high earners at the other. We also advise on what to do with peripheral DC arrangements which are increasingly costly to run.

As consolidating DC arrangements becomes more popular, we are on hand to give timely, proportionate and clear advice to employers and trustees based on our experience of advising hundreds of occupational pension schemes over many years. In particular, we advise on the available options and legal implications such as moving to another DC occupational scheme within the group, a group personal pensions scheme or master trust, or winding up the scheme altogether.

We also advise on employment issues and have strong links with an employment firm through our membership of Ius Laboris, the global alliance of leading HR law practitioners.

Employers and trustees must ensure that pension arrangements are not operated in a way that directly or indirectly discriminates against a member or employee because of a protected characteristic, such as someone’s sex or age. We have extensive experience of advising on all discrimination issues.

Recent experience

• Advising employers on the best way for them to consolidate their DC benefits
• Advising on pension-related employment issues, especially in relation to TUPE and outsourcing
• Advising employers on the different long-term savings options it can make available to its employees, including Lifetime ISAs, and how this fits in with its overall benefit package
• Advising on GMP equalisation and benefit design issues in the light of age and disability legislation
• Assessing health and group risk arrangements for a number of employers.