SCHEDULES

SCHEDULE 17AUTOMATIC TRANSFER OF PENSION BENEFITS ETC.

PART 2MERGER OF PENSION ACCOUNTS

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1

The Department may by regulations make provision for the purposes of requiring dormant pension accounts of a qualifying member of an automatic transfer scheme to be merged into a current pension account of the member.

2

The regulations may not require a dormant pension account to be merged unless the accrued rights to benefits to which the account relates would be transferable benefits of the member if—

a

all other accrued rights to benefits of the member, and any relevant contributions, were ignored, and

b

any other prescribed matter were ignored.

3

The regulations may in particular—

a

make provision for determining into which current pension account (if the member has more than one) a dormant pension account is to be merged;

b

provide that the rules of the scheme that are to apply to a merged pension account are those that apply to the current pension account into which a dormant pension account is being merged;

c

require the trustees or managers of the scheme to make a transfer of assets representing the accrued rights to benefits to which a dormant pension account relates;

d

include provision corresponding or similar to any provision which may be made by regulations under Part 1.

4

In this paragraph “pension account”, in relation to a member of a scheme, means an account relating to the member's accrued rights to benefits in respect of a particular period of employment; and a pension account—

a

is “dormant” if relevant contributions in relation to the period of employment to which the account relates have ceased; and

b

is “current” if such contributions have not ceased.

5

In this paragraph—

a

references to “accrued rights to benefits”, in relation to a member of a scheme, are to accrued rights to benefits under the applicable rules (within the meaning given by paragraph 1(6));

b

“employment” has the prescribed meaning;

c

“relevant contributions”, in relation to a member of a scheme, means contributions to the scheme by, or on behalf or in respect of, the member.