The PPF has appealed to the high court for the first time, against a decision of the PPF ombudsman. The case concerns the West of England Ship Owners Insurance Services Limited Retirement Benefits Scheme.
The scheme trustees had challenged the 2010/2011 levy calculation on the grounds that the failure score assigned to the scheme's Luxembourg-registered employer failed to take into account the company's financial statements that had been filed at the Luxembourg companies registry. The trustees say that they were not warned about Dun & Bradstreet Luxembourg's data collection process which, unlike its UK arm, does not automatically access publicly filed accounts. D&B argued that it would be impractical to notify each of the pension scheme employers of the specific processes in its many overseas operating territories.
Somewhat unusually the Deputy PPF Ombudsman upheld the complaint, saying that "trustees cannot reasonably be penalised because they failed to guess that D&B operates differently whilst working for the PPF in different countries when equally the PPF failed to advise about a critical variation". She ordered the PPF to contribute £10,000 to the trustees' legal costs and directed a review of the scheme's risk-based levy for the year.
This decision is no doubt welcomed by overseas trustees and employers, since it brings into line D&B's approach to domestic and overseas entities. The PPF's appeal is to be heard in October of this year.
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