More Press Coverage

In addition to the lead articles in The Times and The Scotsman there has been lots of follow up coverage in both the UK and Holland.

Daily Mirror Tuesday 7 June "Heineken staff bitter over pension pledge"

Daily Mail Tuesday 7 June "Heineken faces S&N pensions row"

BBC Scotland website Monday 6 June "S&N pensioners claim raw deal"

Investment & Pensions Europe 6 June "S&N pensions row"

efinancial news 6 June "S&N pensions plan members accused of breaking promise"

Uniteunion.org 7 June "Heineken row bubbles on"

Newcastle Journal Tuesday 7 June "Row over S&N pension promises"

The Times Tuesday 7 June City diary

Professional Pensions magazine 6 June "Heineken accused of breaking pension promise"

People Management magazine 6 June "Heineken accused of breaking pension promise"

thisismoney.co.uk 6 June "Heineken faces S&N pension row"

BGN entrepreneur.net 6 June "Heineken faces S&N row"

Caterer.com 6 June "Pensioners call for government probe on Heineken over pensions"

Pensions Insight magazine 8 June " Heineken accused of raw deal for S&N pensioners"

Retirement links 6 June "Heineken faces S&N pensions dispute"

De Telegraaf Tuesday 7 June " Scottish pension conflict with Heineken"

Financieel Daglad Tuesday 7 June "British pensioners angry with Heineken"

The Grocer Tuesday 7 June "Heineken caught up in row over S&N pensions"

Edinburgh Evening News Wednesday 8 June "Time to honour benefits agreed in S&N takeover"

HR Director 8 June "Storm in a beer glass"

Protestwatch.org.uk 6 June " Heineken faces S&N pensioner row"

Scotsman Friday 10 June "Heineken's pensions decision makes a review a must"

Edinburgh Evening News 13 June "MPs to push for inquiry into Heineken pension promise"

York Press 13 June "Dutch bosses in brewery pensions row"

Newcastle Journal 20 June Pensioner case study feature

Look out for more!

Scots Law

 
Sadly the meeting with Counsel (see May 23 posting below) has determined that there are no significant opportunities for us to seek a litigated resolution of our problem under Scots Law. We will however continue to seek every other route of attack.  The PR campaign will continue with even more vigour, as will the activities with MPs, MSPs, MEPs, Unite the union, the Select Committee and the Pension Ombudsman.
 

Press Coverage for Campaign

Today there were articles in both The Times and The Scotsman.  The articles confirmed that the SNPG had written to the Chairman of the Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee asking that the committee investigate Heineken’s behaviour in reneging on their undertaking on pensions.  Both articles were the lead in the business section - “Heineken stands accused of reneging on pensions promise” (The Times);  “Heineken accused of ‘raw deal’ for S&N pensioners” (The Scotsman).  They gave detailed accounts of what Heineken said before the takeover and what they are saying now.  Tom Ward acted as spokesman for the group and was widely quoted.  We expect follow up from others papers in the next few days.

Prudential Judgment

The Prudential judgment was published in late April and our lawyers have been carefully considering it. While the Prudential scheme members lost, the judgment is helpful to us in that it clarifies the issues that are common to both the Prudential and the S&N Schemes.
 
The S&N Scheme is governed by Scots Law, whereas the Prudential Scheme is regulated by English Law. Because of the, sometimes fundamental, differences between the two legal systems, the Prudential judgment may provide an opportunity for us which was found not to be relevant in the Prudential (English Law) case. We are planning to seek further guidance on this from Counsel.