APL Conference 2021
Brighton

Mark Atkinson

CMS

From the North many years ago.  With CMS for 29 years now.  Interests – sport and (proper) music.  Likes -  APL engraved glasses (from the days when speakers really were appreciated).  Dislikes – building projects at home.   Over ten years on the L&P committee and 2 years as APL chair mean I now really enjoy Tuesday evenings at home.

Ruth Bamforth

Walker Morris

Ruth is a director in the Walker Morris pensions team. Before moving back to Leeds, Ruth used to work in the City.

Suzanne Burrell

Shoosmiths

Suzanne is a partner in the Pensions team at Shoosmiths.  She has twenty years' experience advising trustees and employers on all aspects of occupational pension schemes – qualifying into the Pensions team at Mayer Brown in 2001 and then joining Shoosmiths in 2010.  Her recent experience covers a range of pension scheme activity including advice on insurance company buy-outs, asset backed funding arrangements, GMP equalisation.  She is also a member of the Legislative and Parliamentary sub-committee.  Suzanne is a keen runner and some of her best ideas (including the topic of this debate) have come to her while out running!

Claire Carroll

Eversheds Sutherland

Claire Carroll is Head of Pensions Disputes at Eversheds Sutherland, which is a Tier 1 practice in both Chambers and Legal 500.  She is in the Legal 500 Hall of Fame, and ranked as a  Band One invidual in Chambers for Pensions Litigation.  Claire is also Chair of the APL Pensions Litigation Committee. Claire has worked on many leading pensions cases, including Barnardo’s (Supreme Court), the British Airways litigation, the Pilots litigation, Steria and Adams v Options.  She combines this practice with regulatory enforcement investigations, both involving TPR, but also the FCA. 

Rosalind Connor

ARC Pensions Law

Rosalind is Managing partner of Arc pensions Law and has practised pensions law for about 25 years. She is a former chair and secretary of the APL and sits on the legislative and parliamentary committee. She has also sat on the Pensions Board of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, has been chair of the London region of PMI. When she was chair of the APL, she had the dubious of representing the Association in front of Frank Field's work and pensions select committee and may have inspired s88A of the PSA21, for which she apologises. 

Stephen Gillick

Mason Hayes & Curran

Stephen is a Partner and Head of the Pensions Group in Mason Hayes & Curran. He has extensive experience in advising trustees, sponsoring employers and pension providers on a range of issues, including pension scheme establishment and restructuring; pension scheme funding and exercises to reduce scheme liabilities.

Stephen is experienced in drafting and updating pension scheme documentation and advising on pension scheme mergers and reorganisations. He regularly advises on the pension aspects of corporate acquisitions and disposals.

Stephen also provides guidance to trustees and sponsoring employers on compliance and interpretation of pensions legislation and scheme rules.

Stephen was appointed as a Member of the Pensions Council in February 2020. The Pensions Council was set up to advise the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection on matters relating to policy on pensions. The Council is to represent and protect the consumer interest and help to ensure that the system has a far stronger consumer focus.

Stephen is a regular presenter at pensions events in Ireland and abroad and is the external examiner for the Law Society of Ireland’s Pensions Certificate.

David E. Grant

Outer Temple Chambers

David E Grant’s practice encompasses the full range of pensions work including professional negligence claims, regulatory matters, tax and Ombudsman complaints. David has extensive advocacy experience of pensions matters in the ECJ, CA, High Court, Upper Tribunal and off-shore jurisdictions. He has also attended numerous mediations and round table meetings in a wide variety of cases.

David is the former chairman of the Litigation Committee and the current secretary to the Pensions Litigation Court Users’ Committee now chaired by Trower J.

David has acted for employers, trustees, representative beneficiaries, individual complaints, TPR, the PPF and the Ombudsman.

Nick Heaton

Hogan Lovells

Nick is a litigation partner at Hogan Lovells.  He has specialised in Pension litigation for over 15 years.  In that time he has acted for employers, trustees, members and advisers on the full range of pension litigation, from directions applications to regulatory issues.  High profile matters include Hughes v PPF, the BT Crown Guarantee and IMG cases.  Nick also has extensive experience of pension related professional negligence cases.   He is a longstanding member of the APL Litigation sub-committee.

Ed Jackson

Allen & Overy

I am a senior associate in Allen & Overy’s corporate pensions team. My practice consists of advisory work for trustees and employers of predominately large occupational pension schemes in a variety of industries, including financial services, retail, transport and mining. I also have a particular interest and focus on m&a and restructuring work.

I am a bit of a cricket badger, so please feel free to seek me out later at the bar if you want to have a moan about the plight of the English test side!

Miriam Kimber

Pension Protection Fund

I have been at the PPF since 2009, and during that time I’ve been involved in almost everything the PPF does, but mainly with the pension protection levy (with a sideline in information law). I am also very involved in diversity and inclusion matters within and outside the PPF, which have prompted my desire to deliver this talk today.  

Henry Legge QC

5 Stone Buildings

Henry has acted in many of the leading pension cases of the last few years: most recently in Axminster and Univar but before then in Nortel, the IBM litigation and the BT crown guarantee litigation.  He has specialised in pensions law and the law of trusts for many years both as a junior and as a silk. 

Francesca Parnell

Allen & Overy

I am a Senior Associate in the Allen & Overy Corporate Pensions team and advise a range of employer and trustee clients.  My practice spans, among others, a number of large financial institution clients and defence sector organisations, with a particular focus on liability management and risk reduction.  I am a member of the APL Investment and DC Sub-Committee and of the PASA Pensions Dashboard Working Group.

David Pollard

Wilberforce Chambers

David Pollard is now a barrister practising from Wilberforce Chambers in Lincoln’s Inn.  He previously practised as a solicitor with Freshfields in London and (a long time ago in the 1980s) in Singapore.  

His book “Pensions Contracts and Trusts: Legal Issues on decision making: Applying Braganza” came out last year.  A new book “Connected and Associated: Insolvency and Pensions Law” is due out shortly. 

This is David’s 10^th talk at the APL Annual Conference – the first was 30 years ago in Dublin in 1991.

Anthony Raymond

The Pensions Regulator

Anthony is General Counsel and Director of Legal Services at The Pensions Regulator (TPR). Anthony has been a qualified solicitor for 20 years and joined TPR 13 years ago as a litigation lawyer. He has subsequently had policy, management and leadership roles and now heads up the General Counsel and Governance Office. Anthony has extensive experience of regulatory, pensions and public law and practice, and has had a strategic role at TPR in relation to climate change for the last 3 years. Prior to his work at TPR, Anthony specialised in white-collar crime litigation and extradition.

Nicolas Stallworthy QC

Outer Temple

Nick is a QC specializing in pensions at Outer Temple Chambers.  He has been a member of the APL since 1998, serving on the Education & Seminars sub-committee from 2006 to 2017; and on the Main Committee since 2017.

Tom Tayler

Aviva (and secondee to the COP26 High Level Climate Champions)

Tom Tayler is a Senior Manager in the Aviva Investors Sustainable Finance Centre for Excellence.

Tom supports Aviva Investors’ work regarding sustainable finance focussing on market and regulatory reform, including contributing to the work of the COP26 High Level Climate Champions, the EU HLEG on Sustainable Finance, and the UK Green Market Taskforce. 

Tom has also worked with policymakers on key reforms including the EU Sustainable Finance Action Plan and the DWP reform of pension trustees’ fiduciary duty. He is a solicitor, holding an MA (Oxon) in Jurisprudence from the Queen’s College, Oxford. He previously worked at Allen & Overy LLP, the Department of the Treasury Solicitor, Beachcroft LLP and the University of Law.

Alison Winstanley

The Pensions Regulator

Alison started life as a corporate lawyer, but after 3 years had a “lightbulb moment” and moved into pensions as a far more interesting area – a view she firmly maintains well over 10 years later.  Having built up considerable experience in the private sector, she joined The Pensions Regulator in 2014, and continues to find her work both challenging and full of surprises.  As a bit of a David Attenborough fan, she has been delighted to be involved in looking at pensions and climate change since mid-2019, including working on the development of TPR guidance.