Mark Blyth
- Simon Borhan - Sarah Opie - Joe Chambers
Pensions Ombudsman Focus Summer 2022 edition
Welcome to Pensions Ombudsman Focus for the Summer 2022 period. In this edition, we look at six recent complaints to the Pensions Ombudsman, including:
- A decision which emphasises the limit of trustees’ duties in respect of transfer requests;
- A decision highlighting that maladministration is not always sufficient to warrant an award in itself, in the context of an overpayment complaint;
- A decision confirming that, when considering a change of position defence, a member must have actually spent the money in good faith; it is not enough that they had acted in good faith previously;
- A decision exploring a number of factors which the Ombudsman will take into account when considering claims of unjust enrichment, as well as the interplay of any unjust enrichment claim with a change of position defence;
- A decision reiterating an employer’s duties with respect to automatic enrolment notwithstanding the financial position of the business, and the importance of engaging cooperatively with the Ombudsman; and
- A decision which recaps that when assessing a member’s eligibility for ill-health retirement benefits, the decision maker must assess the medical evidence which existed at the relevant time under the scheme rules (i.e., on leaving service) and must take care when considering any subsequent evidence after the event.