High Court approves pension age equalisation settlement in Ross Trustees v Rowe

The High Court has approved a compromise settlement resolving longstanding uncertainty over when male and female members of the Motor Industry Pension Plan achieved equal retirement ages, bringing clarity to an issue rooted in a 1990 European Court of Justice ruling.

In Ross Trustees Services Limited v Comron Rowe [2026] EWHC 1901 (Ch), Mr Justice Adam Johnson approved both a set of representation orders and the substance of a negotiated settlement, describing his reasons for orders he had already indicated he would make at a hearing earlier in July.

The dispute traced back to the Plan's original 1984 trust deed and rules, which set a pensionable age of 65 for men and 60 for women. That differential became unlawful following the European Court of Justice's judgement in Barber v Guardian Royal Exchange Assurance Group, which held that occupational pension schemes could not pay retirement benefits from different ages depending on sex. Subsequent case law established that schemes could equalise ages going forward, including at a less favourable age such as 65, but that until equalisation was properly achieved, schemes had to be administered on the basis that all members benefited from the more favourable age of 60.

The Plan's trustee at the time attempted to equalise ages in 1992 through a new trust deed and rules, with contemporaneous correspondence indicating an intention to move to age 65 from 1 April 1992. However, the drafting of the 1992 rules created ambiguity, since the relevant provision on employers' choice of retirement age appeared, on its face, to apply only to new employers joining the scheme after May 1992, rather than to existing employers whose staff were already accruing benefits. A further trust deed in 1999 was accepted by all parties as having achieved effective equalisation at 65 by April of that year, leaving open only the question of what applied in the intervening period.

Because members' interests diverged depending on the answer, with some benefiting from a finding that the more generous age 60 provision persisted longer and others benefiting from an earlier equalisation date, the trustee brought Part 8 proceedings under CPR rule 19.9, seeking representation orders to allow the competing positions to be argued and resolved on a scheme-wide basis. Mr Comron Rowe was appointed to represent those favouring a later equalisation date, with the trustee representing those favouring an earlier one, an approach the judge noted was now a well established feature of pension litigation following Capita ATL Pension Trustees Ltd v Zurkinskas.

Following negotiations involving leading counsel on both sides, the parties reached a settlement reflecting what was described as a 66:34 "merits split" in favour of the position that equalisation had not been fully achieved in 1992. Under the agreed terms, normal retirement age would be treated as 60 for service between May 1990 and May 1992, a transitional 61.7 for service between May 1992 and April 1999, and 65 thereafter.

Applying the test from CPR rule 19.9(6), which requires the court to be satisfied that a settlement is for the benefit of all represented persons, Mr Justice Johnson held that the compromise struck a fair balance between the competing groups, each of whom gave up the chance of full vindication in exchange for removing litigation risk. He noted that no objections had been received following notice to affected employers and members, and that the Plan's actuarial consultants had devised a workable methodology for implementation without system changes.

The order also addresses the position of scheme sections now administered by the Pension Protection Fund following transfers or financial assistance, giving the PPF responsibility for implementing the settlement in relation to those sections, with liberty to apply for six months.