Legal History

The stakes couldn’t get much bigger. If our landmark legal action, which was covered widely in the national press, is successful female workers across all industries who are in or were in defined benefit pension schemes will benefit to the tune of some £13 -£20bn.

We’ve chosen to take a test case against Lloyds Bank where up to 165,000 female members of the Bank’s defined benefit pension schemes will be entitled to pension increases but some 5 million women across 2,400 contracted-out pension schemes in all industrial sectors will also be entitled to increased pension payments.

It is our contention, backed up by advice from a leading QC, that the pensions, in particular the Guaranteed Minimum Pensions (GMPs), of female members of staff increase at a lower rate than the pensions of male members. That’s discriminatory on the grounds of sex and is unlawful.

What’s It Worth?

Affinity’s actuarial adviser has looked at a range of members and estimated that the overall difference in benefits, depending on the calculating method used, could be worth up to £2,000 per female member of staff.

If you multiply that by the number of female members – active, pensioner and deferred – of the Lloyds pension schemes, that equates to nearly £300 million excluding the cost of implementing any pension changes

Thousands Join Class Action

Thousands of members have registered to join Affinity’s class action lawsuit against Lloyds and its Trustee Board.

We made the registration process straightforward and it took no more than a few minutes to complete.

Other Companies

Once our action against Lloyds is complete and the key principles of equalisation have been established we will move on to advise members in other companies on how they can enforce equality in their own pension schemes.