Posted by Brian Marks on 02 December 2000 at 10:05:45:
Thank you to the people who have been posting info on this site.
I have not yet read the Barclays appeal result (it is 60 pages
and not electronically published) so what appears on this site is
valuable. The ruling seems to be more opinionated and less
expositive than one would expect. The City Comment said the judge
was "sympathetic to the bank". If these decisions are a matter of
opinion and sympathy it is bad news when they are moved from the
Ombudsman, who has the experience of pensions, to somebody who
does not.
If this ruling sticks, some 'sections' of a plan can be
cross-funded from others, but there are a whole lot of questions
unanswered, like: Does this apply however different the sections
are? Can the company rewrite history to make one plan where
there were originally two? Are there limits to running one
section for the benefit of another, eg delayed&reduced payment
increases, no payment increases, payment reductions...? Are
there limits on the pressure/motivation a company can apply to
its appointed majority on the board? Is what the retirees were
told before retirement relevant? How far can the retirees be kept
in the dark about what is happening?
IBM-v-retirees will be next in line to test these issues because,
on the spectrum of company behaviours, IBM has been operating at
the "favouring IBM financial interests over the interests of
retirees" end.
Changing topic, did you see that link to Wall Street Journal
information that Mr Gerstner sold 9% of his share options for
59.6 million dollars? I wonder what is the total value of what
he has had from IBM. Was the share sale all profit? If so it
computes to 662 million for 100%. Add to that salaries of
millions over the years and provision for a pension of over a
million per annum. The total must be a nine digit number, maybe
approaching a ten digit one. That is more than the C-plan
reserves currently lost to benefit the IBM balance sheet.
However, a summation over what IBM pension funds across the world
have already lost analogously might be a similar figure. No
suggestion of cause and effect, of course, but the numbers are
not entirely unrelated.