David Farmer

Trustee Director | Head of Strategic Pension Solutions

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David has 25 years’ pensions experience helping pension sponsors, trustees and members on all aspects of pension issues and across a wide portfolio of schemes, where assets under management range in size from £15m to £15bn+.

As a qualified lawyer, David worked with clients across the whole spectrum of pensions legal issues including liability management, benefit redesign projects and contingent funding arrangements. Alongside the past seven years at PWC Legal, David has also held partnership roles at DLA Piper and Olswang (now CMS).

David has deep expertise in supporting employers on the pension aspects of corporate transactions, navigating the interactions between pensions and employment law (as well as industrial relations issues), and handling the restructuring of distressed schemes including related interactions with the Pensions Protection Fund (PPF). He also has a focus on the risk transaction market and in particular working with clients on alternatives to full scheme buy-outs and was the lead adviser on the only third party capital solution to have traded in the market to date.

  • Advising on all aspects of pensions advice to employers and trustees of both Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution arrangements and employer governance committees of contract-based schemes.
  • Dealing with all aspects of DB and DC scheme governance including advising on the implications of the Pensions Schemes Act 2021, helping trustee boards prepare for the new combined code, advising on GMP equalisation projects and advising on investment governance.
  • Dealing with funding issues including advising on funding agreements and the use of contingent assets, asset backed funding structures, escrows and reservoir trusts.
  • Dealing with scheme sponsors in or facing distress including advising on PPF entry / exit, solvent restructurings, and advice on options under the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 and interaction with Pensions Act 2021
  • Leading on all aspects of DB pension scheme de-risking from developing exit strategies, executing traditional insurance transactions (e.g. buyout, buy-in) and dealing with innovative solutions (Superfunds, Captive insurance solutions, Fiduciary Management).
  • Supporting sponsors and trustees of DB pension schemes in corporate restructurings / transactions including how to structure corporate activity in line with Pensions Act 2021.
  • Working with both commercial master trusts and NAME schemes on gaining authorisation and dealing with transferring benefits from DB, DC and hybrid schemes to new DC arrangements, including master trusts.
  • Leading the legal team on the development of Capital Backed Journey Plan, a third-party capital solution designed to help ensure schemes achieve a specific target e.g. buyout or funding targets.
  • As legal adviser, advising the BBC for over 14 years on all its pensions arrangements which includes one of the largest DB schemes in the country. Work included successfully defending the BBC through to the Court of Appeal against a union supported member challenge and recently representing the BBC in the High Court
  • Successfully represented scheme member in the High Court in the cases of IBM (IBM v Dalgleish) and Halcrow Group Ltd (Pollock v Reed).
  • Legal adviser for British Airways in relation to a contentious matter arising from a potential switch from RPI to CPI for pension increase purposes.
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