THE PENSION LIFE TICK CAMPAIGN: now that Andrew Warwick-Thompson, Executive Director for Regulatory Policy at the Pensions Regulator is joining LGPS Central as CEO, it is time for him to help us to ensure all negligent ceding providers compensate their victims. No doubt Andrew will engage enthusiastically with this campaign and lead by example.
tPR Chair David Norgrove stated on 13.7.2010:
“Any administrator who simply ticks a box and allows the transfer, post July 2010, is failing in their duty as a trustee and as such are liable to compensate the beneficiary.”
But on 29.12.2010, LGPS simply ticked a box, failed in their duty as a trustee, handed over a nurse’s pension to a bogus occupational scheme operating pension liberation, and is now liable to compensate her for her losses. The victim in question, Mrs. G, will be in the High Court as Representative Beneficiary of the Ark schemes to challenge Dalriada Trustees’ application to recover the loans on 19.6.2017.
Although LGPS did indeed perform badly in the case of Ark – handing over many thousands of pounds’ worth of pensions – the worst performing personal pension provider was Standard Life (by a mile). And Standard Life have rejected all the complaints made by their victims and refused to compensate them for their losses due to Standard Life’s failings.
STANDARD LIFE
The 2016 Report states: “During 2016 we engaged directly with our customers, investors and employees to review our strategy and ensure we continue to focus on the right areas. We asked these stakeholders to provide their views on what is important to them across our four sustainability priorities. This review highlighted a number of areas that matter most to our stakeholders including trust and transparency, governance, sustainable economic growth, cyber-crime, climate change, responsible stewardship, financial inclusion and decent work and pay. This input will also help focus our activity in 2017 and beyond.
If Standard Life are going to claim transparency and want customers to trust them, they have to prove they are capable of responsible stewardship. Handing over millions of pounds worth of pensions to obvious scammers neither inspires trust nor evidences responsible stewardship.
Standard Life declared a profit of £723 million in 2016 – after paying its four directors salaries in excess of £10.8 million – 40% of which was in bonuses. It is ridiculous, offensive and disgusting for Standard Life to fail to compensate the victims of fraud who are facing financial ruin due to Standard Life’s own failings.
There are only three questions to ask about Standard Life’s obligation to compensate its victims:
Did Standard Life simply tick a box and allow a transfer? TICK
Did Standard Life fail in their duty as trustee? TICK
Are Standard Life liable to compensate their beneficiaries? TICK
Don’t use Standard Life until they compensate their victims. Don’t put money in the pockets of these negligent people who pay their directors obscene salaries and lie about their company’s ethics.
