European Union Matters: Acquired Rights Directive Council of Ministers; June 1998

United Kingdom

Acquired Rights Directive - Council of Ministers; June 1998

As is well known, the Acquired Rights Directive, which protects the rights of employees on the transfer of an undertaking, does not require occupational pension rights to be transferred. However, the Council of Ministers has now agreed that the Acquired Rights Directive should be amended to permit Member States to include occupational pension rights in the rights which are transferred automatically to a new employer on a business transfer. A new directive has been issued on this basis and will take effect in June 2001. In its Green Paper on Pensions published in December 1998, the Government indicated that it intended to place before Parliament in 1999 new regulations which would amend our domestic legislation, the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981, so as to include occupational pensions.