Arron Slocombe | People | Baker McKenzie

Biography

Arron leads our London Pensions practice, having specialised in complex pensions work and major projects for global corporate clients and UK trustees for over 20 years.

Practice Focus

Arron advises on a broad range of pensions work including pension buyouts and liability management, regulatory clearance work, scheme mergers, benefit and corporate restructurings with particular focus on managing statutory debts, investment issues including climate change, risk hedging arrangements including longevity, and pensions litigation.

Representative Legal Matters

Pensions Regulator clearance and anti-avoidance issues, including negotiations with the Pension Protection Fund on several restructuring and corporate recovery deals. Arron's experience includes advising Lufthansa on the sale of BMI to IAG/BA and the publicly reported agreement with TPR and the PPF for the BMI Scheme to transfer to the PPF.
Advising the trustees of a leading DC master trust on matters critical to its operational and commercial success and regulatory compliance.
Advising trustees on a leading innovative longevity reinsurance deal and a first-of-kind conversion to a buy-in.
Advising a major outsourcing company on switching the inflation basis for pension indexation from RPI to CPI across four schemes.
Litigation: advising the representative beneficiary in the IMG Case (2009-2012), a leading case up to the Court of Appeal regarding the challenge to a company's conversion of final salary benefits to money purchase benefits; advising the company on a 2020 High Court case regarding RPI/CPI switching powers; acting for the representative beneficiaries in an application to the High Court to approve a settlement in relation to a surplus repayment; advising on a 2022 High Court case regarding scheme funding powers and protected persons under an industry-wide scheme.
Buy-ins and buyouts: advising: the Perkin Elmer Scheme trustees on a 2021 buy-in; the trustees of a leading outsourced provider's GBP 700 million buy-in; Denso on the corporate side on the buyout of two schemes including an innovative approach to securing future service accrual; advising a FTSE 100 company on structuring and implementing a buyout strategy.
Extensive scheme merger experience, including advising the trustees of a leading UK Bank through a series of mergers, advising both a global outsourcing company and a global chemical company on three-way mergers, and the UK trustees of a US manufacturing company's UK scheme on three separate mergers.
Corporate transactions, reorganisations and outsourcings.
Advising trustees and employers on the impact of tax simplification, discrimination laws and new legislation.
Ongoing advice to a number of large defined benefit and occupational defined contribution schemes.

Professional Associations and Memberships

Society of Pension Professionals - Council Member and former Legislation Committee Chair
Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association
Association of Pension Lawyers

Corporate Responsibility

Arron is the Partner sponsor of our London office's social mobility focus group. Arron previously helped found and was an active member in our reading partnership programme at a local primary school run in conjunction with the Tower Hamlets Education Business Partnership.

Admissions

England & Wales~United Kingdom (2003)

Education

Oxford Institute of Legal Practice (Diploma Law) (2000)
University of Bristol (LL.B.) (1999)

Languages

English
French