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STATUTORY RULES OF NORTHERN IRELAND


2005 No. 569

PENSIONS

The Occupational Pension Schemes (Investment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2005

  Made 16th December 2005 
  Coming into operation 30th December 2005 

The Department for Social Development, in exercise of the powers conferred by Articles 35(1), (3), (4) and (7), 36(1), (1A) and (9), 36A, 40(1) and (2), 115(1), 120(2), 122(3) and 166(1) to (3) of the Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 1995[1] and now vested in it[2], and of all other powers enabling it in that behalf, hereby makes the following Regulations:

Citation, commencement and interpretation
     1. —(1) These Regulations may be cited as the Occupational Pension Schemes (Investment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2005 and shall come into operation on 30th December 2005.

    (2) In these Regulations—

    (3) Regulations 12(4)(b), 13(3) and 15(1) must be read with—

    (4) Subject to paragraph (5) and for the purposes of Articles 35 (investment principles) and 40 (restriction on employer-related investments), "employer", in relation to a scheme which has no active members, includes every person who was the employer of persons in the description of employment to which the scheme relates immediately before the time at which the scheme ceased to have any active members in relation to it.

    (5) In these Regulations, "employer", in relation to a multi-employer scheme, or a section of a multi-employer scheme, includes—

    (6) For the purposes of these Regulations, and not withstanding section 39(2) of the Interpretation Act (Northern Ireland) 1954[11], where a period of time is expressed to begin on, or to be reckoned from, a particular day, that day shall be included in the period.

    (7) In these Regulations any reference to a numbered Article is a reference to the Article of the 1995 Order bearing that number.

Statement of investment principles
     2. —(1) The trustees of a trust scheme must secure that the statement of investment principles prepared for the scheme under Article 35 is reviewed—

    (2) Before preparing or revising a statement of investment principles, the trustees of a trust scheme must—

    (3) A statement of investment principles must be in writing and must cover at least the following matters—

Application of regulation 2 in relation to multi-employer schemes
    
3. —(1) In the application of regulation 2 to a scheme in relation to which there is more than one employer, the requirement imposed by paragraph (2)(b) of that regulation—

    (2) Where the trustees specify a reasonable period (not being less than 28 days) within which they must receive representations from the employers, sub-paragraph (1)(b) does not require them to consider any representations received after the end of that period.

Investment by trustees
    
4. —(1) The trustees of a trust scheme must exercise their powers of investment, and any fund manager to whom any discretion has been delegated under Article 34[12] (power of investment and delegation) must exercise the discretion, in accordance with this regulation.

    (2) The assets must be invested—

    (3) The powers of investment, or the discretion, must be exercised in a manner calculated to ensure the security, quality, liquidity and profitability of the portfolio as a whole.

    (4) Assets held to cover the scheme's technical provisions must also be invested in a manner appropriate to the nature and duration of the expected future retirement benefits payable under the scheme.

    (5) The assets of the scheme must consist predominantly of investments admitted to trading on regulated markets.

    (6) Investment in assets which are not admitted to trading on such markets must in any event be kept to a prudent level.

    (7) The assets of the scheme must be properly diversified in such a way as to avoid excessive reliance on any particular asset, issuer or group of undertakings and so as to avoid accumulations of risk in the portfolio as a whole. Investments in assets issued by the same issuer or by issuers belonging to the same group must not expose the scheme to excessive risk concentration.

    (8) Investment in derivative instruments may be made only in so far as they—

and any such investment must be made and managed so as to avoid excessive risk exposure to a single counterparty and to other derivative operations.

    (9) For the purposes of paragraph (5)—

    (10) To the extent that the assets of a scheme consist of qualifying insurance policies, those policies shall be treated as satisfying the requirement for proper diversification when considering the diversification of assets as a whole in accordance with paragraph (7).

    (11) In this regulation—

Borrowing and guarantees by trustees
     5. —(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), the trustees of a trust scheme, and a fund manager to whom any discretion has been delegated under Article 34, must not borrow money or act as a guarantor in respect of the obligations of another person where the borrowing is liable to be repaid, or liability under a guarantee is liable to be satisfied, out of the assets of the scheme.

    (2) Paragraph (1) does not preclude borrowing made only for the purpose of providing liquidity for the scheme and on a temporary basis.

Disapplication of Article 35 and of regulations 2 and 3 in respect of certain schemes
    
6. —(1) Article 35 and regulations 2 and 3 shall not apply to any of the following schemes—

    (2) In this regulation—

Disapplication of regulations 4 and 5 in respect of schemes with fewer than 100 members
     7. —(1) Regulations 4 and 5 do not apply to a scheme which has fewer than 100 members.

    (2) Where regulation 4 does not apply to a scheme by virtue only of paragraph (1), the trustees of the scheme in exercising their powers of investment, and any fund manager to whom any discretion has been delegated under Article 34 in exercising the discretion, must have regard to the need for diversification of investments, in so far as appropriate to the circumstances of the scheme.

Modification of regulation 2 in respect of wholly-insured schemes
    
8. —(1) Where, on the preparation or revision of a statement of investment principles under regulation 2, a scheme is a wholly-insured scheme and the trustees do not consider that it should cease to be such a scheme—

    (2) In this regulation, "wholly-insured scheme" means a trust scheme, other than a stakeholder pension scheme within the meaning of Article 3 of the Welfare Reform and Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 1999[17] (meaning of "stakeholder pension scheme"), which has no investments other than specified qualifying insurance policies.

    (3) For the purposes of paragraph (2), "investments" shall not include—

Partial disapplication of regulation 4 in respect of schemes being wound up
     9. —(1) The requirements of regulation 4(3) to (7) shall apply in respect of a scheme which is being wound up except to the extent that—

    (2) For the purposes of paragraph (1), a scheme shall be taken to be being wound up during the period which—

Connected and associated persons
    
10. Articles 4 and 7 of the Insolvency (Northern Ireland) Order 1989[18] (associated and connected persons) shall be modified in their application for the purposes of Article 40 (restriction on employer-related investments) and these Regulations so that a company shall not be connected with another company solely by reason of one or more of its directors being a director of that other company.

Prescription of investments as employer-related investments
     11. For the purposes of Article 40(2)(e), the following are prescribed as employer-related investments—

Restrictions on employer-related investments
    
12. —(1) This regulation applies to trust schemes except small schemes.

    (2) Subject to regulations 13 to 16—

    (3) None of the resources of a scheme may at any time be invested in any employer-related investment the making of which involves the entering by the trustees or managers into a transaction at an undervalue where the agreement to enter into that transaction was made on or after 6th April 1997.

    (4) In this regulation and in regulations 14 and 15 "employer-related loan" means—

    (5) In paragraph (3), "transaction at an undervalue" has the same meaning in relation to trustees and managers as it has in Article 202(4) of the Insolvency (Northern Ireland) Order 1989 in relation to a company to which that Article applies.

Investments to which restrictions do not apply
    
13. —(1) Regulation 12(1) shall not restrict or prohibit investments to which this regulation applies.

    (2) This regulation applies to investments prescribed as employer-related investments by regulation 11(e) (but not to investments prescribed as employer-related investments by regulation 11(d)) where the insurance policy—

    (3) This regulation applies to any employer-related investment of resources in an account (including a current, deposit or share account) with—

    (4) This regulation applies to any employer-related investment of resources which derives from a member's voluntary contributions and is invested in employer-related investments with the written agreement of the member who paid those contributions.

    (5) This regulation applies to sums due from the employer to the trustees by virtue of a provision in an order under Article 7[
19] (appointment of trustees) such as is permitted by Article 8(1)[20] (orders appointing trustees may provide that certain sums are to be treated as a debt due from the employer to the trustees).

    (6) This regulation applies to sums which fall or fell to be treated as debts due from the employer to the trustees or managers by virtue of—

and to sums which would fall to be so treated by virtue of any of those Articles were they not already debts due from the employer to the trustees or managers.

    (7) For the purposes of regulation 11(a), the investments made by the operator of any collective investment scheme shall not be taken into account if—

    (8) All schemes in relation to which the respective employers are within the same group of companies shall be treated as—

and for the purposes of paragraph (7)(d) all issues within a group of companies shall be treated as issued by a single issuer.

    (9) For the purposes of paragraph (8), "group of companies" means a group of companies consisting of a holding company and one or more subsidiaries where "holding company" and "subsidiary" have the same meaning as in Article 4 of the Companies (Northern Ireland) Order 1986[22] ("subsidiary", "holding company" and "wholly-owned subsidiary").

    (10) Subject to paragraph (11), where the disposal of assets on the winding up of a scheme would otherwise result in a contravention of these Regulations, any employer-related investments held before the commencement of the winding up may be retained while the scheme is being wound up, but there shall be no new investment in employer-related investments while the resources retained under this paragraph exceed 5 per cent. of the current market value of the resources of the scheme.

    (11) Paragraph (10) does not apply to permit the retention of—

    (12) This regulation applies to a loan to the employer or a company associated with the employer, if the scheme has fewer than 100 members, and—

    (13) This regulation applies to any security given over a qualifying insurance policy to secure obligations of the employer, or of any person who is connected with, or an associate of, the employer, where—

Transitional provisions
     14. —(1) Where on 6th April 1997 the resources of a scheme were invested in—

those investments may be retained in accordance with paragraph (2).

    (2) To the extent that the employer-related investments mentioned in paragraph (1) consist of—

    (3) If any investment referred to in paragraph (2) is listed on a recognised stock exchange, it may be retained for a period of no more than six months beginning with the date on which it was listed.

    (4) There shall be no new investment in employer-related investments while the resources of a scheme retained in employer-related investments (other than investments authorised by regulation 13) exceed 5 per cent. of the current market value of the resources of the scheme.

    (5) In this regulation—

Loans that become employer-related
     15. —(1) If either a loan or a security which is an investment creating or acknowledging a debt becomes an employer-related loan on or after 6th April 1997 as a result of a change in the ownership of the employer or the person to whom the loan was made, the loan or security may be retained until whichever is the later of—

    (2) In paragraph (1)—

Multi-employer schemes
    
16. —(1) Where a scheme in relation to which there is more than one employer is divided into two or more sections and the provisions of the scheme are such that—

then regulations 10 to 15 shall apply as if each section of the scheme were a separate scheme.

    (2) Where—

then regulations 10 to 15 shall apply as if the section in relation to which those conditions have ceased to be satisfied were a separate scheme.

    (3) For the purposes of paragraphs (1) and (2), there shall be disregarded any provisions of the scheme by virtue of which contributions or transfers of assets may be made to make provision for death benefits; and where paragraph (1) or (2) applies and contributions or transfers are so made to a section ("the death benefits section") the assets of which may only be applied for the provision of death benefits, the death benefits section shall also be treated as if it were a separate scheme for the purposes of regulations 10 to 15.

    (4) For the purposes of paragraphs (1) to (3), there shall be disregarded any provisions of the scheme by virtue of which on the winding up of the scheme assets attributable to one section may be used for the purposes of another section.

    (5) Where there is more than one employer in relation to a scheme (other than a scheme to which paragraph (1) or (2) applies), and at least two of those employers are persons who are neither a company nor a person connected with that company nor associates of each other—

Scheme undertaking cross-border activities
    
17. The following shall not apply in the case of a scheme undertaking cross-border activities—

Revocations
    
18. The Regulations specified in column (1) of the Schedule are revoked to the extent specified in column (3).



Sealed with the Official Seal of the Department for Social Development on


16th December 2005.

L.S.


John O'Neill
A senior officer of the Department for Social Development


SCHEDULE
Regulation 18


REVOCATIONS


Column (1)

Citation

Column (2)

Reference

Column (3)

Extent of revocation

The Occupational Pension Schemes (Investment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996 S.R. 1996 No. 584 The whole Regulations
The Personal and Occupational Pension Schemes (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1997 S.R. 1997 No. 160 In the Schedule, paragraph 8
The Occupational Pension Schemes (Reference Scheme and Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1997 S.R. 1997 No. 162 Regulation 4
The Occupational Pension Schemes (Investment, and Assignment, Forfeiture, Bankruptcy etc.) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1999 S.R. 1999 No. 309 Regulation 2
The Stakeholder Pension Schemes Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2000 S.R. 2000 No. 262 Regulation 30
The Occupational Pension Schemes (Republic of Ireland Schemes Exemption) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2000 S.R. 2000 No. 382 Regulation 7
The Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Contracting-out) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2002 S.R. 2002 No. 109 Regulation 4
The Social Security and Pensions (Financial Services and Markets Act 2000) (Consequential Amendments) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2003 S.R. 2003 No. 256 Regulation 8
The Occupational Pension Schemes (Employer Debt) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2005 S.R. 2005 No. 168 In Schedule 2, paragraph 2



EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Regulations.)


These Regulations replace, with amendments, and revoke the Occupational Pension Schemes (Investment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996. The Regulations supplement changes made to the Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 1995 ("the 1995 Order") by the Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 2005. They include provisions to implement certain requirements of the Directive 2003/41/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the activities and supervision of institutions for occupational retirement provision (O.J. No. L235, 23.9.2003, p.10) ("the Directive"), in particular of Articles 12 and 18.

The Regulations impose requirements on trustees of occupational pension schemes in relation to the statement of investment principles required under Article 35 of the 1995 Order and in relation to the choosing of investments. They impose restrictions on borrowing and the giving of guarantees by trustees and in respect of employer-related investments.

Regulation 1 makes provision for citation, commencement and interpretation.

Regulation 2 sets out requirements in respect of the statement of investment principles required under Article 35 of the 1995 Order.

Regulation 3 sets out modified requirements in respect of such statements for schemes in relation to which there is more than one employer.

Regulation 4 sets out requirements in respect of choosing investments.

Regulation 5 sets out restrictions in respect of borrowing and guarantees.

Regulations 6 to 9 disapply Article 35 of the 1995 Order and disapply or modify certain requirements of regulations 2 to 5, in respect of certain schemes.

Regulation 10 defines the expressions "connected persons" and "associated persons" as they apply in these Regulations.

Regulations 11 to 16 prescribe certain investments as employer-related investments in addition to those specified in Article 40(2) of the 1995 Order and set out the restrictions on employer-related investments. They also prescribe investments to which the restrictions do not apply. Special provision is made as regards the application of the restrictions to schemes in relation to which there is more than one employer.

Regulation 17 makes special provision in the case of a scheme undertaking cross-border activities.

Regulation 18 makes consequential revocations.

As these Regulations make in relation to Northern Ireland only provision corresponding to provision contained in regulations made by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in relation to Great Britain, the requirement for consultation under Article 117(1) of the 1995 Order does not apply by virtue of paragraph (2)(e) of that Article.

The transposition of Articles 12 and 18 of the Directive is detailed in the Transposition Note, a copy of which has been laid in the Business Office and the Library of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Copies of the Note are available from the Department for Social Development, Social Security Policy and Legislation Division, Level 1, James House, 2-4 Cromac Avenue, Gasworks Business Park, Ormeau Road, Belfast BT7 2JA.


Notes:

[1] S.I. 1995/3213 (N.I. 22); Article 35 is substituted by Article 221 of the Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 2005 (S.I. 2005/255 (N.I. 1)); Article 36 was amended by article 151 of S.I. 2001/3649 and is amended by Article 222 of the Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 2005; Article 36A is inserted by Article 223 of that Order and Article 40 was amended by article 152 of S.I. 2001/3649 and article 26 of S.I. 2004/355back

[2] See Article 8(b) of S.R. 1999 No. 481back

[3] S.I. 2005/255 (N.I. 1)back

[4] 2000 c. 8back

[5] 1988 c. 1back

[6] S.I. 2001/1062; paragraph 9(1)(a) was substituted by article 2(2) of S.I. 2001/3650back

[7] O.J. No. L345, 19.12.2002, p.1back

[8] Article 23 was substituted by Article 32(3) of the Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 2005back

[9] S.I. 2001/544back

[10] Article 75 was amended by Article 248 of the Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 2005back

[11] 1954 c. 33 (N.I.)back

[12] Article 34 was amended by article 150 of S.I. 2001/3649 and is amended by paragraph 43 of Schedule 10 to the Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 2005back

[13] O.J. No. L145, 30.4.2004, p. 1back

[14] O.J. No. L141, 11.6.1993, p.27back

[15] S.I. 1972/1073 (N.I. 10)back

[16] 1975 c.26back

[17] S.I. 1999/3147 (N.I. 11)back

[18] S.I. 1989/2405 (N.I. 19); Article 4 was modified by Schedule 3 to S.R. 2004 No. 307 and amended by paragraph 80 of Schedule 29 to the Civil Partnership Act 2004 (c. 33) and Article 7 was modified by Schedule 3 to S.R. 2004 No. 307back

[19] Article 7 was amended by Article 31(1) of the Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 2005back

[20] Article 8 was amended by Article 31(2) of the Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 2005back

[21] Article 75 was amended by Article 248 of the Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 2005back

[22] S.I. 1986/1032 (N.I. 6); Articles 4 and 4A were substituted for Article 4 by Article 62(1) of the Companies (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order 1990 (S.I. 1990/1504 (N.I. 10)) and Article 4 was modified by Schedule 2 to S.R. 2004 No. 307back

[23] S.R. 1996 No. 584, amended by S.R. 1997 Nos. 160 and 162, S.R. 1999 No. 309, S.R. 2000 Nos. 262 and 382, S.R. 2002 No. 109, S.R. 2003 No. 256 and S.R. 2005 No. 168back

[24] S.R. 1992 No. 47; revoked by regulation 13(1) of S.R. 1996 No. 584back



ISBN 0 337 96284 7


 © Crown copyright 2005

Prepared 4 January 2006


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