International Trade

New Age Of Muddle

March 2007
Andrew Powell, International Trade Today

It has been said that any good intention translated into legislation rarely has the intended effect. In implementing age discrimination obligations placed upon it by the European Union, the UK has entangled itself in a web of complexity in trying to meet them while, at the same time, avoiding yet another blow to its beleaguered pensions industry.

The move to outlaw age discrimination in the workplace derives from the EU Equal Treatment Directive. Formulated in 2000, it had a built-in delay that allowed implementation to be set back to October 2006. The Regulations initially published (The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006) were proffered as a comprehensive piece of legislation to deal with all aspects of age discrimination, including the field of pension provision.

These Regulations took effect on 1 October 2006. However, the relevant part of the Regulations (Regulation 11 and Schedule 2) dealing with pensions issues were deferred until 1 December 2006.

What went wrong?

The initial response of the UK Government seemed complacent; the framework for pensions in the UK either were, or could easily be, exempted from any negative effect of the implementation of the EU Directive. The pensions aspects of the Regulations set out a long list of exemptions, some of which derived specifically from those set out under the EU Directive.

In addition, a catch-all exemption, such that a practice could be seen to be objectively justifiable in relation to both direct and indirect discrimination, seemed to provide a ‘get out jail free’ card to those whose arrangements could not easily be captured even in a long list.

Specific exemptions were tailored to meet admission to schemes, actuarial calculations and contributions. There were further exemptions relating to early... continued on page two >

 

 

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