Gowling WLG

Pensions; Automotive

Partner

"very good technical command and spot on with detail"

Chambers & Partners, 2016

Christopher Stiles is a director based primarily in Birmingham who helps clients to deal with any contentious or non-contentious legal issues that may arise in relation to their pension plans with the greatest possible ease and efficiency.

Pensions can be a challenging area for employers, with pension plans that ranging from legacy arrangements that are now closed to accrual, but are still a major liability on the balance sheet, to ongoing plans that are used to reward current employees.

Christopher takes a particular interest in innovative and complex projects including asset-backed funding arrangements, liability management exercises and buy-outs.

On the trustee side, Christopher has close ongoing relationships with his trustee clients and helps them through the legal issues they face in running their pension schemes, both the day-to-day problems and larger projects including scheme mergers and wind-ups.

Experience advising various clients on asset-backed funding structures using a range of assets and innovative structures to improve the employer's cash flow while simultaneously improving the security of scheme benefits; helping the trustees of a £1 billion scheme implement a comprehensive funding package with their sponsoring employer; negotiating major buy-in contracts with insurance providers; helping trustees to resolve disputes with scheme members including Pensions Ombudsman cases; advising the trustees of schemes in wind-up to secure benefits with an insurer, terminate the schemes and achieve peace of mind from knowing that all liabilities were correctly secured; helping a company to obtain a significant financial saving from the merger of its legacy pension schemes; advising the trustees of a £1 billion scheme in relation to implementation of a liability-driven investment strategy.

English