U.K. Plc Bosses Face Jail Under Proposed Pension-Raid Laws

(Bloomberg) -- The U.K. government will introduce laws to jail company bosses who raid worker pensions.

The country’s Pension Regulator will be given the power to put “lengthy jail terms on the table for reckless bosses who plunder people’s pension pots,” according to a statement accompanying the Queen’s Speech, a ceremony held to mark the start of a new parliament.

Under the new law, offenders could be jailed up to seven years and face a civil penalty of up to 1 million pounds ($1.3 million), according to the statement. The announcement reinforced similar proposals put forth in October when the previous Conservative government unveiled changes to pensions system.

Stricter rules for company bosses follows a public outcry in Britain over the collapse of the retail chain BHS alongside a more than half a billion-pound pension deficit. Former owner Philip Green in February 2017 agreed to pay as much as 363 million pounds to compensate 19,000 former workers of the collapsed department store chain after months of haggling with the regulator.

The Pension Schemes Bill outlined Thursday by the Queen would introduce rules that would make it easier for authorities to step in when employers aren’t taking their pension responsibilities seriously, according to the statement.

The bill also paves the way for so-called dashboards, which are aimed at helping savers to understand their pensions and how their money is invested.

--With assistance from Lucca de Paoli.

To contact the reporter on this story: Benjamin Robertson in London at brobertson29@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Shelley Robinson at ssmith118@bloomberg.net, Chris Bourke

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