One of the most important pensions cases in years gets underway at the UK's High Court today, with administrators for the collapsed bank Lehman Brothers, and the bankrupt Canadian telecoms group Nortel Networks, seeking to avoid a £2.2bn bill for staff pensions. The outcome of the case could have profound implications for any company running a retirement scheme.
The court action, due to be brought today, is a challenge to the authority of the UK's Pensions Regulator, a body set up in 2004 to hold companies to their retirement promises. It has served Lehman Brothers' administrators with a bill for £148m, and Nortel with £2.1bn, to pay off the shortfalls in their underfunded UK pension schemes.