The Authority regulates and supervises compliance with the requirements of the Pensions Act 1990, as amended, by trustees of occupational pension schemes, personal retirement savings accounts (PRSA) providers, registered administrators (RAs) and employers.

According to its annual report for 2021, it last year secured convictions in three cases:

• Two cases related to the deduction and non-remittance of employee pension contributions to a scheme within the statutory timeframe (section 58A(1) of the Act).
• One case related to the non-remittance of obliged employer pension contributions to a scheme within the statutory timeframe (section 58A(2) of the Act).

“The remaining cases were struck out due to payment of arrears or the underlying matter being rectified in advance of the court date,” the report states.

Over the course of the year, the Authority opened 15 new investigations into various alleged breaches of the Act, varying from deduction and non-remittance of pension contributions to failure to reply to a statutory request for information. During the year, 24 investigations were finalised and closed.

The Authority was also involved in “several complex compliance cases, some of which remain ongoing”, including trustees’ failure to submit overdue funding proposals for a
DB scheme; investigations into trustee conduct and behaviour in the small self-administered pension scheme (SSAP) sector; and initiating High Court proceedings to remove a trustee pursuant to section 63 of the Act.