The High Court in a landmark judgment ruled that Llyods Banking Group must change its pension rules to ensure equal pension payments between men and women.
This was a consequence of the case filed by three women in the pension scheme who are claiming sex discrimination on the grounds that their pensions increase at a lower rate than those of their male counterparts.
Guarantee Minimum Pensions (GMP) forms the focal point of the case for employees whose employers contracted them out of the state earnings related pension scheme between 1990 and 1997. Under this contracting scheme, employers were allowed to pay a lower rate of national insurance such that business promised a GMP to employees, which was to be “broadly equivalent” to the state pension.
Llyods has estimated that its bills from the ruling will mean increased pensions for affected members at £100mn-£150mn.
