Pensions (non-contentious)
Hall of Fame
The lawyers at the very top of the profession, widely known and respected by peers and clients for their longstanding involvement in market-leading work.
Hall of fameHogan Lovells US LLP
After qualifying as a solicitor in 1990, Duncan Buchanan realised he had a passion for pensions, which he has concentrated on since 1992. His wealth of experience is second to none and he has been an asset since he joined us as a partner in 2006.
Hall of fameSlaughter and May
Partner; Charles advises sponsors, trustees and insurers on corporate pension plans. His experience ranges from pension plan restructuring driven by M&A or insolvency, to funding and covenant negotiations on change of control, to plan closures.
Corporate pension plans combine uniquely the features of reputation sensitivity and financial risk in a legal context which is complex, highly regulated and where the positions of trustees, sponsors, shareholders, employers, unions, regulators and politicians need reconciling. Charles has a lot of experience in doing so, and in leading or being part of the multi-disciplinary adviser teams necessary, sourced from our financing, insurance, tax and dispute resolution groups.
Hall of fameSlaughter and May
Partner; Dan is a partner in our Pensions Employment & Incentives Group. He joined the firm in 2017. He has over twenty two years of partner experience. His practice is transactional, general advisory and contentious. He advises employers and trustees. Dan’s experience includes preparing for a sale process, benefit redesign and covenant and funding solutions.
Hall of fameArc Pensions Law
Anna advises clients who operate or sponsor occupational pension schemes, with a particular expertise in defined benefit schemes. Her current focus is on various stages of the DB journey to ultimate winding-up, involving both assets and liabilities. This encompasses benefit specifications and scheme documentation exercises, holistic reality checks on benefit structure to ensure a sound foundation for future administration, and liability management of all kinds with or without member consent (including GMP conversion). She has long experience with bulk purchase annuity transactions, remedial action on a ‘self-help’ basis, winding up and trustee protection. On the asset side, she has dealt with many funding and security negotiations, including contingent assets and funding agreements, and dealing with surplus. Anna advises a number of DB schemes from very large to very small on these issues, as well as ongoing compliance, governance, risk management and strategic planning. Anna has helped clients work through all the significant pensions legal and regulatory developments as they have unfolded over time. Anna also has experience with many scheme mergers, demergers, and the pensions aspects of corporate transactions at UK and international levels.
Leading partners
The strongest partners in their field, leading on market-leading deals and endorsed by peers and clients alike.
Herbert Smith Freehills LLP
PartnerAlison is the Global Head of Employment, Pensions and Incentives
Sacker & Partners LLP
Janet advises both trustees and employers, large and small, of both defined benefit and defined contribution arrangements and governance committees of contract based schemes Her work covers mergers and demergers, corporate transactions and helping both schemes and employers through the increasing complexity of pensions legislation.
Janet is the day-to-day partner on a number of large multi-employer schemes across the oil, gas, chemical and university sectors.
Herbert Smith Freehills LLP
PartnerSam's practice encompasses a wide range of pensions matters, advising corporates, trustees, providers and other pensions stakeholders.
Stephenson Harwood
A pension law expert, Philip is well known for his work in a range of sectors, in particular corporate and not-for-profit. He advises trustees and employers on all manner of pension law issues. Philip heads up the advisory practice group at Stephenson Harwood.
Philip’s experience in advising trustees and employers ranges from advising on liability reduction exercises such as ceasing accruals and pension increase exchange. After twenty five years in the industry there is virtually no area which Philip has not dealt with.
His technical skills and knowledge of general pension issues is of an extremely high level allowing him to provide clients with practical commercial advice regarding their pension arrangements.
Philip is a member of the Association of Pension Lawyers and a regular commentator on legal issues affecting pension provision in the press and industry publications. He has sat on the legislation sub-committee of the Society of Pension Consultants and is a founder member of the Pension Lawyers Support Group. He regularly speaks at seminars and workshops on topical legal issues.
Philip is an accredited CEDR mediator.
Osborne Clarke LLP
Please see full biography at osborneclarke.com/lawyers/jonathan-hazlett/
Slaughter and May
Partner; Sandeep advises on a broad variety of pensions and employment-related matters. His practice is transactional, general advisory and contentious.
He advises employers and trustees. His experience includes management of issues arising from scheme funding deficits, implementing the transition to more affordable benefit structures and full or partial buy-outs of pension scheme liabilities.
He is at the forefront of thinking in developing collective defined contribution (CDC) schemes, acting as the sole external legal adviser on the ground breaking CDC scheme which Royal Mail designed with their unions under the new Pension Schemes Act 2021 regime.
Addleshaw Goddard
Partner specialising in all aspects of pensions advisory and transactional work, advising trustees and sponsoring employer (companies and LLPs). Advisory experience includes interpretation, consolidations, establishing schemes and new benefit sections, scheme mergers and sectionalisation, and investment documentation, as well as day to day issues including compliance in particular with the Finance Act, Pensions Act and date protection. Transactional experience includes corporate reorganisations, LLP conversions and share sales including advising on negotiations with trustees over funding implications and seeking Pensions Regulator clearance.
Sacker & Partners LLP
Partner who advises trustees and employers of pension schemes (big and small) on everyday issues and project work. Fuat's advice routinely includes managing change (whether benefit changes or legislative changes), updating scheme documentation, member communications and advising on the legal aspects of funding issues.
He also has particular expertise advising employers on projects. These range from liability management exercises (such as PIEs and ETVs) to benefit reforms and corporate transactions (M&A activity, TUPE, and public to private outsourcings). He leads the firm’s outsourcing group and is a member of the team that provides transactional support services to other law firms. Recent experience includes advising employers on mitigating the impact of the end of DB contracting out and the forthcoming state benefit changes.
Sacker & Partners LLP
David has experience of a wide range of pension issues advising both employers and trustees. He is the lead partner for a number of the firm’s major defined benefit and defined contribution clients in the financial services, electricity, IT and logistics sectors. His broad practice encompasses interpretation and application of scheme documentation, mergers and demergers, scheme funding, liability management and generally helping clients to navigate their way through the increasing maze of pension regulation and legislation.
His recent work has included advising clients making changes to their pension provision, including closure to future service accrual and bulk transfers of members’ benefits, scheme funding and the Regulator’s new regime.
He also frequently advises on the pensions aspects of corporate acquisitions, disposals and reorganisations and heads up the team that provides transactional support services to other law firms.
Hogan Lovells US LLP
People are often surprised to find out that Claire's a pensions lawyer. She's learned to take that as a compliment. She enjoys working closely with clients to find solutions to their problems and believes that pensions law is much improved by some straight talking and a sense of humour. Claire likes variety and this is reflected in the wide range of clients and matters that she works on. She has developed specialist practices in trustee friendly derivative instruments and the VAT recoverability of pension scheme expenses.
Next Generation Partners
Junior partners with significant recognition from clients and peers in the market and key roles on multiple matters.
Stephenson Harwood
Naeem is a pensions specialist with significant experience in advising employers and trustees on all aspects of this technical area. He has wide-ranging expertise covering the general advisory, transactional and contentious elements of the practice of pensions law.
Naeem has advised clients across a full spectrum of issues; from complex scheme rule amendments and pensions taxation and investment issues; to High Court applications pertaining to construction and rectification of pension scheme rules; through to managing defined benefit pension risks on corporate transactions.
His general advisory practice is broad and amongst other things he has advised clients on their contingent asset arrangements, on scheme mergers, closures to future accrual and the legal aspects of the diversification of pension schemes' investment portfolios.
His litigation practice covers advising on non-adversarial applications to construe or rectify scheme rules as well as adversarial claims such as professional negligence actions against former pension scheme advisers.
He also advises on the pensions aspects of corporate transactions including the management of employer debt that may be triggered and the application of the TUPE legislation in the pensions transactional context.
Naeem is a regular contributor to various trade publications and has written on a number of topics including auto-enrolment, the statutory funding regime and the use of extrinsic contracts to vary pension rights.
Sacker & Partners LLP
Partner and specialist pensions lawyer with over 15 years’ experience of advising trustees and companies on all aspects of UK pensions law, regulation and industry best practice. She is a DC specialist but also has a thriving DB practice – her clients include trustees/providers of DB and DC schemes (large and small) and international/FTSE 100 and 250 companies who participate in UK and offshore trust and contract-based arrangements.
Jacqui works with a range of occupational and personal pension providers on legal and non-legal DC matters and has a practical appreciation of the key challenges we need to overcome to secure good outcomes for members. She advises independent governance committees (IGC) and chairs provider forums for key industry players which makes her uniquely placed to provide independent ideas and thoughts on issues which span trust and contract pension provision.
Stephenson Harwood
A big scheme specialist, Stephen advises employers, trustees, and master trusts on all types of pensions issues. He has a commercial style on strategic issues and brings a responsive approach on day to day matters. With the ability to present complex ideas in a simple way, Stephen has helped a variety of clients with tricky pensions issues, from the trustees of global banks to UK manufacturers.
Stephen joined Stephenson Harwood from Allen and Overy to complement our strong and growing pensions team. As a rising star in pensions law, Stephen further enhances the reputation of the firm's pension practice.
He is an expert on pensions in the banking sector, large pension schemes, Pensions Regulator issues and master trusts. Stephen has experience on major strategic projects including advising on the acquisition of a major master trust provider and the largest company contribution made to a pension scheme to date. Stephen is also a trustee so he understands what trustees need from their advisers. Stephen established the Pensions Innovation Café, and likes to present advice in a modern, user friendly way.
Stephen‘s recent experience includes advising on multiple transfers to DC master trusts and the trustees of several of the UK's major pension schemes on all day to day legal issues. He also gave strategic advice on major Pensions Regulatory issues for a FTSE 100 company as well as to a global telecoms company on world-wide pensions issues.
Arc Pensions Law
Anna is a Partner at Arc Pensions Law and advises sponsors and trustees on all aspects of DB and DC arrangements, including governance, funding, benefit redesign, liability management exercises and scheme closures. She has extensive experience of negotiating commercial documentation, including third party administrator agreements. In addition to advising DB arrangements, she has expertise in relation to DC arrangements and master trusts. Her work includes advising on investment options and without consent switches, asset security and value for money assessments, and regulatory compliance including charge cap and chair’s statement compliance. She advises schemes on dealings with the Pensions Regulator on all matters. In the field of master trusts, Anna has experience of setting up new DC master trusts and helping schemes through the authorisation process. She has worked both with master trusts exiting the market under the new legislation, and DC occupational schemes thinking about winding-up and transferring members into an ongoing master trust. She is a member of the DC Governance Group, that drafted the PLSA's 2020 template DC Chair's statement.Her experience also extends to investment matters, including pooled funds, custody agreements, investment management agreements, and investment platform provider policies. Anna sat on the 2019 PLSA’s ESG and Stewardship Taskforce that created a practical ESG guide for trustees. She is a member of the PLSA's Voting and Implementation Statement Working Group, that has written an industry best practice guide to the new 2020 investment disclosure requirements.Anna is a founding member of the Security of DC Assets Working Party, whose guide on asset security is supported by The Pensions Regulator, and a co-founder of NextGen, a new industry body established to promote and encourage the next generation of pension professionals. Anna was recognised as ‘Lawyer of the Year’, at the Professional Pensions Women in Pensions Awards 2019 and was shortlisted again for this award in 2020.
Leading associates
Rising stars with regular involvement in their team's key work, and recognition from peers or clients as being ones to watch.