COCKING V PRUDENTIAL ASSURANCE COMPANY LTD MACKRELL V GAN LIFE & PENSIONS PLC SILAVANT V GAN LIFE & PENSIONS PLC SZILAYAGA V TSB PENSIONS LTD AND TSB LIFE LTD PARKER V HILL SAMUEL LIFE ASSURANCE LTD GREENWOOD V IRISH LIFE ASSURANCE PLC AND MILL‐SMITH INSURANCE BROKERS LTD

Abstract

This case concerned applications that the aforementioned six actions be stayed. The six separate actions arose out of the personal pensions misselling that in turn forms the basis of the SIB guidance that initiated in October 1994, the Review of Past Business on Pension Transfers and Opt‐outs. That review is currently being imple mented by the Personal Investment Authority (PIA) and its members and is designed to identify individuals who have been sold personal pensions in circumstances so inappropriate to their individual needs that it constitutes a breach of the product provider or Independent Financial Advisers' (IFAs) compliance obligations under the Financial Services Act (FSA) 1986. The review is also designed to compensate such individuals by way of their re‐instatement to the financial position they would have been in had the misselling not taken place, and also provide a limited degree of compensation for any resulting distress suffered. The six Plaintiffs in this case ranged in age and occupation (indeed one of them was retired) but each in his or her own way was very typical of the estimated thousands of individual victims of pensions misselling. They included a retired miner who had been recommended to transfer his benefits from the mineworkers' pension scheme to a private transfer bond, a 34‐year‐old nurse who had opted out of the NHS superannuation scheme in favour of a private pension and a 50‐year‐old school janitor who had been advised by a pensions salesman not to join the local government superannuation scheme which he was eligible to join but rather to take out a personal pension instead. These individuals and the three other Plaintiffs brought actions relying on s. 62 FSA 1986 for compensation for loss suffered as a result of being wrongly advised by the six sets of Defendants that a personal pension policy was better than their occupational scheme.

Citation

Judge Raymond Jack QC Presiding, H. and Gray, J. (1996), "COCKING V PRUDENTIAL ASSURANCE COMPANY LTD MACKRELL V GAN LIFE & PENSIONS PLC SILAVANT V GAN LIFE & PENSIONS PLC SZILAYAGA V TSB PENSIONS LTD AND TSB LIFE LTD PARKER V HILL SAMUEL LIFE ASSURANCE LTD GREENWOOD V IRISH LIFE ASSURANCE PLC AND MILL‐SMITH INSURANCE BROKERS LTD", Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance, Vol. 4 No. 2, pp. 185-193. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb024881