Article 5 Obligation to provide overall materially at least as good benefits under schemes to which employees belong after relevant transactions
This article applies where—
a person (“the employer”) employs a protected person (whether or not he is employed in the London underground railway industry), and
the protected person’s period of continuous employment is not broken for the purposes of paragraph 3(3)(b) of Schedule 32.
The employer must provide a pension scheme—
in which the protected person may participate as a contributing member, and
which makes the appropriate provision.
If the scheme provided by the employer is the LRT Pension Fund, the appropriate provision is provision under which the pension rights which accrue to or in respect of the protected person under the scheme in respect of his service after his relevant transaction are overall materially at least as good as the pension rights accruing to or in respect of him under the LRT Pension Fund in respect of service immediately before that transaction.
If another pension scheme is provided by the employer, the appropriate provision is provision requiring that—
the trustees of the scheme accept payment of a transfer value in respect of the protected person representing pension rights in respect of him under the LRT Pension Fund or any other scheme provided under this Article,
the pension rights acquired by and in respect of him under the scheme as a result of such a payment are overall materially at least as good as those in respect of him under the LRT Pension Fund at the date of his relevant transaction, and
the pension rights which accrue to or in respect of him under the scheme in respect of his service after he begins to participate in the scheme are overall materially at least as good as the pension rights accruing to or in respect of him under the LRT Pension Fund in respect of service immediately before that transaction.
Where another scheme is provided by the employer, the employer must before the end of the period of six months beginning with the date on which the protected person becomes a member of the scheme—
obtain a certificate from an actuary appointed by the trustee of the LRT Pension Fund for the purpose that in his opinion the requirements in paragraph (4)(b) and (c) are met by the scheme, and
furnish copies of the certificate to that trustee and the protected person.
Paragraph (5) does not apply if the protected person has agreed in writing that the employer need not obtain such a certificate.
If and to the extent that an amendment of a pension scheme would, apart from this paragraph, have the effect of making pension rights within paragraph (3) or paragraph (4)(b) or (c) overall materially worse than the pension rights under the LRT Pension Fund with which they are compared under that paragraph, the amendment shall have no effect in relation to those rights, unless the rights are in respect of a protected person who has consented in writing to the amendment.
In determining whether a person’s period of continuous employment is broken for the purposes of paragraph 3(3)(b) of Schedule 32 (and so for paragraph (1)(b) above), any break in the person’s continuity of employment shall be disregarded if the person re-entered employment after the break pursuant to a statutory or contractual right to return to employment which existed before the break.