Defined Benefit Pension Trusts: Asset Partitioning and the Residual Interest
34 Pages Posted: 2 Dec 2008 Last revised: 29 Nov 2010
Date Written: December 2, 2008
Abstract
Over the past decade many employers have closed their defined benefit pension schemes to new members. This paper considers the legal background to these changes by applying an organisational analysis to the distinctive features of a defined benefit pension trust. It proposes that asset partitioning in such a trust serves an entirely different purpose from that in a traditional donative trust. It also proposes that the residual interest in a pension trust is allocated differently from in a donative trust: the party with the most direct residual interest in the trust is the employer rather than the beneficiary of the scheme. This organisational analysis goes far to explain why recent economic events have made the future for defined benefit pension schemes so uncertain.
Keywords: Trusts, pensions, ERISA, organisational theory, asset partitioning, residual claimant status
JEL Classification: K11, K20, K22
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation