'International rules threaten pension funds'

Tuesday 08 January 2008

International accounting rules could lead to changes in some corporate pension schemes and transfer investment risks to workers, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Tuesday.

Under IFRS rules, companies which are signed up to sector-wide pension schemes have to include pension fund investment results in their own accounts. Currently, they only have to include employer contributions as costs.

The paper says pension funds are not yet capable of producing the necessary information, meaning companies have so far been able to dodge the requirement.

But once it is technically possible, there is a risk that companies will switch to pension schemes in which employees and pensioners carry the risks.

Companies which operate their own pension funds already have to include all investment risks in their accounts, the paper says. This means that some companies, such as Philips, have transformed their pension funds so that workers carry all the risk, the FD claims.

The paper says employers’ organisation VNO-NCW is planning to launch a major international and European lobby campaign to have the rules changed.

© DutchNews.nl

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