PPF announces changes to legal panel, and appoints PPF+ advisory panel

The Pension Protection Fund (PPF) has today announced changes to its legal panel. 

Following the conclusion of the four-year term of the previous panel, an extensive procurement process was undertaken, beginning last February. As a result, CMS and Addleshaw Goddard have been appointed alongside Gowling WLG, Herbert Smith Freehills, Hogan Lovells and Osborne Clarke, who were successful in retaining positions on the panel. The successful firms will provide expert legal advice across multiple disciplines. Gowling WLG, Osborne Clarke and CMS have also been selected to provide specialist advice to schemes in PPF assessment.

The procurement process included an emphasis on firms’ social values. The PPF required all applicants to demonstrate the actions they are taking towards both reducing the disability employment gap and tackling workforce inequality. 

Miriam Kimber, interim Director of Legal at the PPF, commented: “We are delighted to announce these exciting changes to our legal panel. We are confident that we have secured a panel of firms that have the technical ability to cover any eventuality we may face, can provide the specialist services needed to drive our legal offering at the PPF and we look forward to working with them.”

“We are particularly proud to have included D&I values at the heart of this procurement process” she continued. “We take social values and diversity and inclusion seriously at the PPF, so it was important to us that we appointed a panel that shares our aims.”

Appointed firms have all been placed on the same rate card to remove the hurdle of any commercial competition when considering allocation. 

Alongside this panel, the PPF has today appointed four firms – Hymans Robertson, LCP, Barnett Waddingham and PwC – to a new specialist panel that will provide transaction advice to schemes in PPF assessment which are overfunded on a PPF basis (PPF+). The PPF+ Advisory Panel will provide core services to PPF+ schemes including: Transaction Advisor, Scheme Actuary and Investment Support, with a view to driving down timescales and costs in the longer term. 

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