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Former spouse did not waive entitlement to a joint and survivor pension in the separation agreement.

FSCO has posted a Guidance Note for public consultation regarding Buy-In Annuities for Defined Benefit Plans.

FSCO has posted an Investment Guidance Note for public consultation regarding Prudent Investment Practices for Derivatives. The Note sets out FSCO’s expectations for plan administrators who choose to invest plan assets in derivatives.

The Ontario government has posted a paper outlining proposed amendments to the regulations under the Ontario Pension Benefits Act, which would allow pension plans to further invest in local infrastructure by exempting plans’ investments in certain Ontario public infrastructure projects from the “30 per cent” pension investment rule.

The Ontario government has posted draft amendments to General Regulation 909 which propose changes related to the following: commuted value transfers, statements to former and retired members and statements of investment policies and procedures.

On September 19, 2014, the federal government released the next round of proposed amendments to the Pension Benefits Standards Regulations, which will change or enact new provisions regarding plan investments, defined contribution (DC) pension plans, and disclosure to plan members.

After introducing a new DC component and giving employees a “one-time opportunity” to choose between their current DB plan and the new DC option, NCR decided to amend its plan so that all members still participating in the DB component of the plan would have to change to the DC component. An arbitrator found that NCR was estopped from doing so and this was upheld by the BC Labour Relations Board.

The Ontario government introduced Bill 14, Building Opportunity and Securing Our Future Act (Budget Measures), 2014, for first reading on July 14, 2014. The Bill includes amendments aimed at facilitating conversions of single employer pension plans to Jointly Sponsored Pension Plans and clarifying the confusion that arose as a result of the Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision in Carrigan v. Carrigan Estate.

Relying on s. 49 of the SPPA, which they argued established a deemed trust in their favour, the pension committees asked for a declaration that the unpaid pension contributions and any deficit to be determined on plan termination rank in priority to the Creditor’s security interest.

The employment of certain non-union employees, who were Quebec residents, was terminated as the result of a corporate restructuring. The employees argued that notwithstanding that they were Quebec residents, they were entitled to grow-in benefits per the Ontario Pension Benefits Act because they were promised that “their conditions of employment with Emerson would be unchanged from those they enjoyed at Nortel”.