Europe

EUROPE/GERMANY - The European Commission asked Germany to amend its legislation on taxation of dividends paid to German pension funds, arguing the higher tax paid by foreign investors is discriminatory against non-German pension funds.

UK - Two-thirds of pension managers believe schemes need to play a more active role in investment governance.

UK - The Pension Protection Fund has approved a solution to equalising benefits for guaranteed minimum pensions.

DENMARK - Danish pension fund ATP has recouped most of its 2008 losses, but is freezing pensions at their 2009 levels next year.

UK - Government restrictions on reclaiming tax on overseas equity dividends via unauthorised unit trusts will potentially harm many UK pension funds, Deloitte warned.

Pareto will be running a limited-attendance currency management seminar at the up-coming Professional Pensions Show in London.

UK - The increased deficit of the BAA defined benefit scheme has contributed to the airport operator's pre-tax losses of £784.7m (US$1.3bn), results showed.

UK - Kevin O'Neill and Samina Vernon have joined State Street Global Markets as vice presidents in the transition management team, the firm said today.

UK - British Telecom Pension Scheme pensions director Kevin O'Boyle speaks to GP senior correspondent Giovanni Legorano about how an internal review led the fund to shift to a contract based scheme for the defined contribution members.

Some 30% of trust-based defined contribution schemes have breached retirement disclosure regulations, a report by The Pensions Regulator revealed.