British Columbia’s pension regulator is cracking down on vague termination expense assumptions over fears unrealistic calculations have caused some plans to overstate their solvency ratios. “We’re becoming a little more rigorous in our expectations,” says Michael Peters, the acting superintendent of pensions at the Financial Institutions Commission of British Columbia in Vancouver. Guidance issued […]
The British Columbia Supreme Court has rejected an American multi-employer pension plan’s claim for $1.25 billion against a U.S. company’s Canadian subsidiary. The case revolved around the claim that a Canadian subsidiary was on the hook for the unfulfilled pension withdrawal liabilities of one of its parent company’s U.S. subsidiaries. The parent company, Walter Group, includes U.S., […]
In a case with significant consequences for Canadian employers and workers that has echoes of the saga involving Nortel Networks Corp., the British Columbia Supreme Court will soon consider whether U.S. pension funds can assert claims over the assets of insolvent Canadian companies. “It’s important for both employers and employees to be aware when American pension […]
2016 was certainly an interesting year for the pension and investment industries. It was a year of political moves that rocked stock markets, a number of provincial consultations on pension solvency reform, the landmark deal struck to enhance the Canada Pension Plan and the subsequent demise of the Ontario Registered Pension Plan. Benefits Canada rounds […]
More reforms just a Band-Aid solution for troubled DB plans.
We may be witnessing the most significant changes to the funding rules of Canadian defined benefit pension plans in more than 25 years. First, since Quebec’s Bill 57 came into effect at the beginning of 2016, minimum funding requirements for private sector plans registered in the province are now based on an enhanced going-concern valuation. […]
Ari Kaplan has launched Kaplan Law, Canada’s first law firm focusing on pension dispute mediation. With two decades of experience at Koskie Minsky, Kaplan has been counsel or co-counsel of some of the country’s most significant pension cases, including appearances at the Supreme Court of Canada and the Nortel insolvency allocation hearings. In 2014, he facilitated […]
More than 1,000 employee and retiree members of Co-op Atlantic’s defined benefit pension plan are to share $7.25 million following a New Brunswick judge’s approval of a plan that signals the final steps of the creditor protection process. The outcome is the “best of a bad situation,” says Ron Pink, a labour and employment lawyer […]
Pensioners of a New Brunswick co-operative have suffered a blow as legal wranglings continue over the fate of pensions at several Canadian companies. In Moncton, N.B., this week, a group of 90 former employees of Co-op Atlantic suffered a setback in a case centred on a 32 per cent reduction to their pension entitlements as […]
This year is shaping up to be a watershed year for solvency funding reform, with funding ratios on the decline and a growing clamour to revise the rules by which sponsors must keep their defined benefit pension plans in the black. While a temporary spike in Canadian 10-year bond yields had arrested and reversed a […]