Prudential Personal Pension Plan (PO-14889)

Ombudsman’s Determination

Outcome

I do not uphold Mr M’s complaint and no further action is required by Prudential.

My reasons for reaching this decision are explained in more detail below.

Complaint summary

Mr M complains that Prudential improperly transferred the pension rights available to him from the Plan to the Speed-e-cash RBS (the Scheme) in 2012 without carrying out sufficient due diligence checks on T12 Administration Ltd, the administrators of the Scheme.

He considers that if Prudential had done this before agreeing to the transfer they would have discovered that:

• the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) was investigating T12 Administration Ltd around that time for another three schemes which they administered i.e. the Pennines, Mendip and Malvern Retirement Benefits Scheme;
• the Pensions Regulator (TPR) had appointed Dalriada Trustees Ltd on 3 April 2012 as an independent trustee to these three schemes because of concerns that they might have been used as vehicles for pension liberation fraud;
• two directors of T12 Administration Ltd, Messrs Andrew Meeson and Peter Bradley were arrested in 2010 and appeared in court charged with pension tax fraud in the following year