Treasury

FIGURES OUT next month are expected to show more British businesses than ever before are cutting dividends because they need cash to cover black holes in their pension funds, according to the Times .

What a mess! Just as we thought the public was finally talking about pensions, the government does a u-turn and leaves the industry to tell consumers they can't put residential property directly into a self-invested personal pension after all.

STANDARD LIFE has wasted up to £3.5m gearing up for aspects of new pensions legislation scrapped just four months before they were set to come into force, according to the Scotsman .

BCCI LIQUIDATORS' £850m lawsuit against the Bank of England dramatically collapsed yesterday at the High Court in London bringing a 12-year legal battle to an end, according to this morning's papers.

A draft Statutory Instrument for option three in the Treasury's consultation paper on the regulation of Self invested personal pensions has been published on the HM Revenue & Customs website almost two months before the end of the consultation period....

MORE OF the 15 former directors being sued for £1.7bn by Equitable Life for negligence are expected to settle within the week after the troubled mutual announced yesterday it had reached an agreement with two former directors, says The Times .

The Treasury has this morning published its proposals for consultation on the regulation of self-invested personal pensions and the creation of a new regulated activity that could require investment advisers to re-register with the Financial Services...

The European Commission has dropped plans to introduce reforms which could have required investment firms tape every telephone conversation with clients.

Pensions reform features heavily in this morning's papers with the government's tax plans coming under fire and pensions fund trustees being warned they could face legal action fior failing to take their share from US securities class actions.

BRITAIN'S "ZOMBIE" or closed book investment funds grew in value by £11bn last year to £135bn, according to research by KPMG, quoted in this morning's Times .