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Richard Pettit EPMI

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Picture of Richard Pettit EPMI

About

Richard advises pension scheme trustees and employers across the full range of pensions issues from moral hazard investigations to funding negotiations and benefit re-design, to de-risking (insurer buy-ins and buy-outs) and wind-up. He is dual qualified in Northern Ireland and England and Wales.

He has a particular focus on supporting employers and trustees of schemes with potentially significant historic documentation and benefit issues in finding a pragmatic way forward. He leads our work supporting schemes on cyber security – with a particular focus on ensuring that schemes with little or no existing cyber resilience take the vital first steps to improve their levels of protection.

Richard is a member of the Pensions Regulator’s industry-wide diversity and inclusion working group, and the Legislative Committee of the Society of Pension Professionals. He is also a regular speaker at industry events and webinars including those hosted by the Pensions Management Institute and holds the PMI’s EPMI status.

Experience

  • Brunel Holdings Pension Scheme: Advising throughout the moral hazard investigation and negotiations leading to what the Daily Telegraph called, then, “the most significant settlement the Pensions Regulator has ever reached”.
  • Project Quebec: Advising on innovative proposals by a struggling employer to avoid insolvency and protect members’ jobs. This was in a highly contentious area involving negotiations with the Pensions Regulator and the Pension Protection Fund.
  • Riverstone Management Pension and Life Assurance Plan: Leading our advice throughout the derisking journey, ultimately leading to enhanced benefits being secured – providing fully inflation protection for members with escalating benefits.
  • Project Spey: Leading advice to trustees taking urgent action in the face of potential insolvency of the employer and loss of assets, including tacking steps to ensure Insolvency Act protection and leading engagement with the Pensions Regulator.
  • Project Lancaster: Supporting trustees in taking a pragmatic approach to resolving the implications of widespread execution, drafting and benefit issues arising in a scheme over a twenty year period.
  • Project Parker: Advising a manufacturing company on the entry of its scheme (with a £60 million deficit) into the Pension Protection Fund, involving clearance from the Pensions Regulator and negotiations with the Pension Protection Fund.

Credentials

  • Admitted as a solicitor: England & Wales (2006); Northern Ireland (2011)
  • EMPI – The Pensions Management Institute

Areas of expertise

Sector focus

Office

“Richard Pettit is excellent, technically superb - never losing sight of pragmatism.”

Legal 500 UK, 2025

“Richard Pettit is an excellent pensions lawyer who combines technical excellence with commercial understanding.”

Legal 500 UK, 2025

“Richard Pettit is a top-notch pensions lawyer - on top of the detail and able to ensure that resources are applied where they get the best returns.”

Legal 500 UK, 2025

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