Louise Pettit Senior Associate

Louise is a senior associate in the firm's pensions team, having qualified into the pensions unit in 2010. She advises employers and trustees with Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution schemes on all aspects of pensions law, across both the private and public sector.

Louise specialises in advising clients on both complex technical issues (navigating the employer debt regime, advising on the implications of the updated definition of money purchase benefits), and large scale projects (buy ins / outs, benefit redesigns, employer withdrawals, PPF entry).

She also advises many trustee clients on day to day issues involved in running an occupational pension scheme, including:

• scheme funding and valuation negotiations
• interpretation and drafting of scheme documents
• proposed benefit changes
• member complaints, and
• scheme governance.

Louise has particular expertise in public sector pensions work, advising administrators of, and employers participating in, public sector pension schemes, including in particular the Local Government Pension Scheme.

• Advising trustees of a multi-employer hybrid scheme in relation to closing its defined contribution section and transferring accrued benefits to a master trust arrangement.
• Drafting new rules for a multi-employer hybrid scheme with a highly complex historical benefit structure, as part of a larger project to move from final salary benefits to accrual on a CARE basis.
• Providing advice on the implications of the amended statutory definition of money purchase benefits for a number of schemes with “non standard” benefit structures.
• Advising in relation to employer withdrawals from multi-employer arrangements, including implementing flexible apportionment arrangements under the employer debt legislation.
• Advising on the pensions aspects of setting up corporate vehicles to deliver public sector services and the related transfer of employees from their public sector employers.