Posted by Jim Wilson on 07 November 2000 at 16:20:27:
For what it is worth OPAS replied extremely promptly to my letter saying
a) that my letter was very similar to Mr Cawley's and seemd to contan all the relevant points: Mr Cawley's had been referred to the Ombudsman (and all the comments on this are contained elsewhere in this website.)
b) in short I deduced that Mr Spencer thought that the Trustee may have been too passive in complying with the company's wishes & therefore were not discharging their duties properly - which is why he passed on the complaint
c) Mr Spencer felt (but stressed that this is a point of view) that the current level of discretionary increase would probably be viewed as acceptable - & also in the context of the surplus as a whole referred to a case where it was deemed that it was not the Trustee's job to negotiate with the "employer" for better terms -it is quite in order for the employer to benefit as well
d) he referred to the Barclay's case and assumed that IBM's Counsel would argue that the IBM situation is different in some way
Nevertheless - the complaint is with the Ombudsman and I guess we will see what he says in due course.