Mr Justice Vos has given judgment in the case of Danks v
QinetiQ Holdings Limited. The case related to the powers of
pension trustees to uprate their members' benefits on the basis
of the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rather than the Retail Prices
Index (RPI) in order to provide a level of protection against
inflation. The case arose following on from the Government's
announcement in 2010 that it would allow increases by reference to
RPI instead of CPI. CPI is generally lower than RPI by around 0.7
per cent, and so entails less cost for schemes and their
employers.
The QinetiQ scheme rules defined the term "Index" as
"the Index of Retail Prices... or any other suitable
cost-of-living index selected by the Trustees...". The
issue was whether the trustees' selection of CPI, instead of
the default position of RPI, would be a "detrimental
modification" under Sections 67 and 67A of the Pensions
Act 1995, by virtue of being a change that "would or might
adversely affect any
