84. Mr Mitchell says that the intention to fund M Plan benefits out of C Plan funds was deliberately concealed from members in that no reference to it was made in the information pack sent to members in early 1997 and the first members knew of it was when the 1997 members' report was published in the spring of 1998. He says that
"Even then, the relatively small sum involved at this point (£2.7m)
gave no real signal of IBM's long-term intentions. It is only the
repetition of this note in the two subsequent reports, coupled with the increasing size of the sum involved, that have made this clear."