Day 3: Wednesday, May 31, 2017
Plenary: Brexit and impact on pension plans in the UK, the EU and the US Coordinator and Discussion Leaders: Phillip Bennett, Sandeep Maudgil |
Sandeep advises on a variety of pensions and employment-related matters, both insofar as they affect mergers and acquisitions, and in the day-to-day ongoing context.
He has extensive experience advising employers and trustees of a wide range of occupational pension schemes on all matters, including:
He has also been at the forefront of thinking in relation to collective defined contribution (CDC) schemes and the new options for retirement benefit provision opened up by the 2014 Pension Schemes Bill.
Workshop 25: "Trends in Pension litigation" Coordinator and Discussion Leaders: Donnie Hall (U.S.A), Roel Veugelers (the Netherlands), Onno Blom (the Netherlands) |
Pension litigation is often complex. Are the courts in your country sufficiently equipped to deal with complex pension litigation? Are specialized pension courts required? Are there alternatives? Arbitration, independent experts, mediation, the pension ombudsman, complaint committees. How is a pension case properly solved in your jurisdiction?
Onno Blom (1957) is the founder and co-owner of Onno F. Blom Advocaten. He is considered as one of the leading pension lawyers in The Netherlands and is a ranked lawyer in Chambers Europe 2016.
In 2010, Blom was appointed Deputy Justice in the Court of Appeals in The Hague.
He graduated from Utrecht University in 1983 and started his career as a pension and insurance lawyer for Delta Lloyd Pensioenen (the pension department of Delta Lloyd, one of the major pension and life insurance companies in the Netherlands) where he became Head of the Legal staff and served as member of the Board of Directors of the company pension fund. From 1989 through 1994 he worked as a senior consultant for a pension consultancy firm, providing legal and commercial services to clients including many law firms.
In 1995 he became advocaat, a member of the Dutch Bar and joined the international law firm of Stibbe Simont Monahan Duhot (presently Stibbe) based in Amsterdam, where he became the firm’s pension law specialist.
In 2000, Blom established his own private practice in Nieuwegein (a suburb of Utrecht), The Netherlands, specializing in pensions and labour law issues. His field of practice includes pension law and labour law, industrial relations, (life) insurance and arbitration related to these matters.
Over the years, Blom published many articles in his field of practice and teaches (post graduate) pension law at the Grotius Academy. He speaks at pension law conferences and seminars and is an active member and former Secretary of the Dutch Association for Pension Law.
In 1991 Roel graduated at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam. He completed European law studies at the College of Europe in Bruges (Belgium). In 1992 he was admitted to the bar. Roel has a mergers & acquisition/corporate background and developed from there into a pension specialist. He was a partner at Simmons & Simmons until the end of 2007. There he developed his own Pension Law practice group. In 2009 he set up his own law firm “Veugelers Advocatuur”. He has provided advice and litigation for many years on matters relating to pension law and has been pension lawyer for several renowned international companies.
Roel is regularly requested to mediate in pension cases. He is editor of the “Pension Magazine” and frequently publishes articles on pension subjects. In addition he is a member of the Dutch Association of Pension Law and IPEBLA ( International Pension and Employee Benefits Lawyers Association). Roel has been lecturing on pension law for several years and is appointed as a deputy judge at the court of The Hague. In this function he is regularly requested to judge various cases
Workshop 26: "Getting There from Here" Coordinator and Discussion Leaders: Vincenzo Ferrante (Italy), Juan José Hita Fernández (Spain), Susan Philpott (Canada), Elizabeth Brown (Canada) |
The road to convert a pension scheme from a pure defined benefit design to some kind of shared risk model (ranging from target benefit to jointly sponsored to defined contribution) is often a long and winding one. While some jurisdictions have created comprehensive regulatory regimes solely dealing with the process of converting pension assets/liabilities from DB to shared risk, others rely more on general legislative principles and the courts. What is clear is that, regardless of the jurisdiction and approach, there are many common issues that arise, including the role of unions and collective bargaining in the conversion/change process; member disclosure and representations; how “consent” factors into the process, including the principle of informed consent; the rights, entitlements, and perceptions of different stakeholders (active members, unionized versus non unionized, and retirees),specifically, how accrued benefits are treated; and best practices for identifying and mitigating litigation risk. In this session, each panelist will provide a unique perspective on the getting there from here, bearing in mind these common questions.
VINCENZO FERRANTE (Speaker) - Email: vincenzo.ferrante@daverioflorio.com
Vincent Ferrante, professor of "Labor Law" at the Catholic University of Milan, also teaches in the same university "Social Security Law" and "Trade Union Law." Since 2003 he is the coordinator of the "Master in Consulting of work and personnel management" (MUCL) of the Faculty of Law of the University. Since November 1994 a lawyer by profession and was admitted to practice before the higher courts.
He is the author of over eighty essays, articles and notes published in the most important scientific journals. For his monograph "Power and self-protection in the employment contract" (Turin, 2004) he received the 2005 dall'AIDLASS (Italian Association of Labour and Social Security Law) the "Massimo D'Antona" award, for the best first work in the field of labor law. Recently published: "Timetables and working time", Naples, 2014 and "Management and Hierarchy in the enterprise (and in the public sector)", Milano, 2013. Thanks to the contribution of the law firm Daverio & Florio has also created the " European code of work "(Milan, 2009).
JUAN JOSÉ HITA FERNÁNDEZ (Speaker) - Email: jj.hita@fornesaabogados.com
SUSAN PHILPOTT (Speaker) - Email: sphilpott@kmlaw.ca
Workshop 27: "Is there a third way between DB and DC? Can target benefit or defined ambition pension plans provide a viable alternative to DB/DC" Coordinator and Discussion Leaders: Jana Steele (Canada), Angela Mazerolle (Canada), Kees-Pieter Dekker (the Netherlands), Judith Donnelly (U.K) |
Summary Description
This session will look at:
ANGELA MAZEROLLE (Speaker) - Email: angela.mazerollestephens@gnb.ca
JUDITH DONNELLY (Speaker) - Email: judith.donnelly@clydeco.com
Judith regularly advises institutional investors on the legal aspects of investing in hedge funds, private equity funds and infrastructure funds, employer-linked investments and asset-backed funding structures. She also has experience advising on the establishment of collaborative platforms for pension funds and other investors.
Judith sits on the board of the International Pension & Employee Benefits Lawyers Association and the investment sub-committee of the Society of Pensions Professionals.
KEES-PIETER DEKKER (Speaker) - Email:
Kees-Pieter Dekker is a senior-associate pensions law at Clifford Chance LLP, Amsterdam. He holds a degree in law from Maastricht University School of law and was called to the bar in 2001. He has over 15 years of experience in pensions law and specializes in all aspects of pensions law, with a focus on the pensions aspects of mergers and acquisition, corporate restructuring and bankruptcy. He has written articles on pensions related subjects and has spoken frequently on (inter) national conferences on aspects of (Dutch) pensions law. Since May 2009 he is working on a doctorate on the prudential supervision of pension funds.
JANA STEELE (Coordinator) - Email: jsteele@osler.com
Jana Steele is a partner in Osler’s Pensions & Benefits Group. Jana has provided advice on the conversion and implementation of the “Shared Risk Plan” pension model for several plans in the province of New Brunswick. She has significant expertise and experience regarding plan design, including innovative plan designs, such as shared risk and target benefit plans – and has written extensively on such plans. Jana also has extensive experience dealing with pensions and benefits in the context of corporate transactions. She is involved in providing advice with respect to both the establishment and the ongoing administration of pension plans. Jana advises on issues such as plan structure, governance, administration, compliance, trustee obligations, surplus matters, plan conversions, plan mergers, transfers and plan wind-ups. Jana also has experience dealing with pensions and benefits issues arising in insolvencies and corporate restructurings.
Jana’s clients have included universities, non-profit entities, governments, multinational corporations and multi-employer pension plans. In addition, she has significant transaction experience involving numerous publicly traded entities. Such transactions routinely involve pension plans with employees in numerous Canadian jurisdictions.
Jana is a past chair of the pensions and benefits executive of the Ontario Bar Association. She has been a guest lecturer at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and Osgoode Hall Law school. Jana recently chaired an international pension lawyer conference in Brussels with the International Pensions and Employee Benefits Lawyers Association (IPEBLA). Jana is a deputy chair of the IPEBLA Steering Committee. Jana has also been a member of the FSCO Legal Advisory Committee since her appointment in 2009.