PENSIONS UPDATE (13.11.2019) ...
From Captain Mike Post:-
'Justice Antony Zacaroli has approved the settlement deal between British Airways (BA) and the trustees of the Airways Pension Scheme (APS).
The High Court approval of the deal yesterday follows a court hearing earlier this monthlooking at the details of the deal, which plans to gradually return the indexation of pensions in payment to align with the Retail Prices Index (RPI) by 2021, with back payments made for the last six years. A further £250m contingency payment will also be unlocked for APS' sister scheme.
This ends the court battle over the trustees' decision to unilaterally award themselves sole power to award discretionary increases in 2011, and then the grant of a 0.2% discretionary increase to members in 2013.
The case had been set to head to the Supreme Court after the High Court and the Court of Appeal had returned judgments contradictory in favour of both BA and the APS trustees, albeit on different legal points.
In a statement, the APS trustees said they were pleased the out-of-court settlement had been agreed and the litigation that commenced in 2013 - and would have otherwise have been due to proceed to appeal at the Supreme Court - had now been brought to an end.
The trustees said they were now making arrangements for eligible pensioner members to receive a one-off lump sum of up to 4.6% and catch-up increase payments of up to 1.7% and 0.7% in the December 2019 pension payroll.
The statement said the trustees would provide full details of the payments and individual statements to all eligible members when payment is made in December - noting individual statements will show the new rate of pension from 8 April 2019 as well as the amount of any lump sum and arrears of pension due.
It said the trustees would also include a summary and FAQ document to assist members with any questions they might have about the discretionary increase payments.'
PENSIONS UPDATE (30.11.19) ...
The public part of the Discretionary Increase Settlement judgment which was handed down by Mr Justice Zacaroli on 11 November 2019 has now been published. It may be found at
https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2019/3027.html&query=(airways)+AND+(fielder)
It makes interesting reading. There is a focus on the fact that there are proposals on the table to do away with the RPI, possibly by 2030. This despite the fact, as has been pointed out by the Royal Statistical Society, that the CPI and the CPIH have defects in the same way that RPI has defects. No inflation index is perfect but an index such as the CPI that is consistently 1% lower than the RPI clearly harms the interests of people like pensioners and holders of index-linked gilts whilst rewarding the interests of bodies such as government on the other side of the equation. This is a proposal to reduce pensioners’ and savers’ protection against inflation and must be fought. There will be many international interests, such as he holders of UK Index-linked gilts and parties to inflation-proofed international commercial contracts governed by English law, who will fiercely oppose the proposal to junk the RPI.
Meanwhile we shall look forward to receiving the benefit of the approved Discretionary Increase settlement starting in the December pension payments.
None of this would have happened without the amazing support of APS members and pensioners.
Regards to All
Mike Post