Pensions Regulator’s intervention report reflects its facilitation of trustee and employer agreement following failure to agree triennial valuation

On March 11, 2025, the Regulator published a regulatory intervention report on its involvement with the MGN Pension Scheme in relation to a failure to agree the 2019 triennial valuation.

At the end of the 15-month statutory deadline for agreeing the valuation, the trustee informed the Regulator that agreement with the employer in relation to the scheme's 2019 valuation was extremely unlikely. The Regulator's supervision team attempted to secure agreement, but this was not possible. The matter was then passed in 2022 to the Regulator's enforcement team, which informed the parties that formal enforcement action would be taken if an agreement could not be reached.

The parties continued negotiations and a mutually acceptable agreement was reached in relation to the 2019 and 2022 valuations without the formal use of the Regulator's powers. The final agreement included additional deficit recovery payments with the financial support of the wider corporate group, and improvements to a dividend-sharing agreement whereby amounts above a certain percentage increase in dividend distributions would result in a sum matching the excess dividend being made to the scheme.