The High Court has ordered Arnotts Ltd. to be joined as a defendant in a case over whether former managing director Seamus Duignan was entitled to transfer his pension benefits to another scheme.
Mr Justice Kelly ruled on 14 October 2005 that the circumstances in which Mr Duignan left the company were central to his claim. The court said that issue could only be determined in a binding way between Mr Duignan and Arnotts.
Mr Duignan, who had worked at Arnotts for more than 40 years, is a member of the Arnotts’ Staff Pension Fund. The judgment put the current value of his pension at more than €5.3 million.
In his statement of claim, Mr Duignan alleged that he was entitled under the pension scheme rules and section 34 of the Pensions Act 1990 to transfer his benefits to another retirement scheme. He claimed the trustees failed to properly consider or complete the transfer and denied him a fair procedure. He sought a declaration that the trustees’ determination refusing the transfer was null and void.
The trustees denied that his employment had simply terminated on 31 January 2004. They pleaded that information available to them from both Mr Duignan and Arnotts showed that he had retired on that date, and that he was therefore not entitled to transfer his pension. The judgment records that the trustees were not party to the circumstances of his departure and said they had acted on information given to them.
Arnotts applied to join the proceedings, arguing that the dispute over whether Mr Duignan retired or otherwise left the company was also at the heart of his claim against the trustees. The company initially sought an order that this issue be determined between it and Mr Duignan as part of the case, but withdrew that request. The court therefore considered the joinder application, not that separate relief.
Mr Duignan opposed the application through counsel and argued that the main issue was his right to transfer the pension under the 1990 Act. The judge held that the departure issue was pivotal to that entitlement. Without Arnotts as a party, the company could not be heard or bound by a determination about how his employment ended, and the case could not completely resolve that question.
The order adds Arnotts as a defendant. The judgment does not decide whether Mr Duignan retired, whether he was entitled to a transfer, or the merits of his claims against the trustees.