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Portrait of Alison  Hills
Areas of expertise: Pensions

Profile

Alison heads up Penningtons Manches Cooper’s pensions team and works mainly in the London, Guildford and Basingstoke offices. She has a broad range of pensions experience and provides her clients with well-reasoned, practical advice, having taken into account the relevant technical complexities and important reputational, commercial and personal factors.

Advising on all aspects of pensions law, her clients range from individuals and small self-administered schemes to large defined benefit multi-employer schemes with assets in excess of £350 million. Alison is well versed in advising overseas clients who may be less familiar with their UK pension obligations. 

Areas of particular specialism include advising on governance, pensions aspects of corporate restructurings/transactions including employer scheme-exits, section 75 debts, implementing flexible apportionment arrangements, member disputes, maladministration claims, implementing scheme benefit structure changes (including closure to accrual), liability management exercises such as pension increase exchange and enhanced transfer exercises, auto-enrolment compliance and salary sacrifice implementation.

According to the Legal 500 2022, ‘Alison Hills is practical, legally strong and with a terrific grasp of the whole picture. The real deal – formidably bright, approachable, clear of expression and not afraid to discuss the possibilities.’ She is an associate of the Pensions Management Institute and a member of the Association of Pension Lawyers’ Education and Seminars Committee.

Recent work highlights

  • Advising the trustees of a scheme with approximately £350 million liabilities on the pensions aspects resulting from a significant spin-off of part of the multinational sponsoring employer’s business.
  • Advising on the buy-in and subsequent buy-out of liabilities for a long-running UK pension scheme with gaps in data, missing historic documents and benefit payment errors.
  • Advising several schools regarding their participation in the Teachers’ Pension Scheme and the options available to them regarding future pension provision under a defined contribution scheme.
  • Advising an overseas company on the pension implications of acquiring a spin-off company with an approximately 100 hectare site and 190 employees, the majority of whom had the benefit of historic DB accrual with their former employer.
  • Advising the trustees of a scheme faced with an approximately £70,000 overpayment to a member resulting from poor record-keeping on the part of a previous scheme administrator.
  • Successful appeal to the General Regulatory Council against an enforcement notice issued against a household name hospitality sector company with regards its failure to comply with certain elements of auto-enrolment compliance.

Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP

Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales with registered number OC311575 and is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority under number 419867.

Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP