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An appeals court has just ruled that the UK bank should equalize treatment in terms of its employees’ pensions, and this landmark decision could become jurisprudence. Everything started in 2016 when three female Lloyds Banking Group employees claimed sexual discrimination between 1990 and 1997. The bank had left the State run SERP pension fund (now closed) and opted for a more generous guaranteed minimum pension fund (GMP). GMP pensions amounts are calculated such that given women reach legal retirement age earlier than men they are at a disadvantage vis-à-vis their male counterparts. 3,000 BTU members (Lloyds employees union) then came together in a class action and on 26 October the courts ruled in favour of the plaintiffs even though it significantly lowered the amount to between £100 and £150 million (€112.3 and €168.5 million) as compared with £508 million (€570.8 million) claimed by the BTU. For the BTU secretary general, mark Brown, this ruling ‘will bring equality to millions of women’. While Lloyds Banking Group has ‘welcomed the decision and the clarity it provides,’ the Department for Work and Pensions has promised to provide fresh guidance to help companies equalize pension payments. 7.8 million employees could be affected. Proof, if needed, of how complex and complicated the UK pension system is that “in having complied with the UK’s legislative requirements to the letter, employers now face a significant additional liability because that legislation and the corresponding state pension benefits treat males and females differently” observed Samantha Brown of the law firm Herbert Smith Freehills.
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