Europe

UK - Members of the Essex Careers pension scheme will receive just under 50% of their pension following the firm's voluntary liquidation.

UK - Schemes must abandon conventional performance measures in favour of liability benchmarks if they are to survive, Insight Investment claims.

UK - The Financial Services Authority must be opened up to public scrutiny to ensure it is policing the industry properly, a parliamentary committee claims.

UK - Social, environmental and ethical performance are inc-reasingly being used as criteria for decision-making by inv-estors, a new report on the FTSE4Good Index claims.

UK - Royal Bank of Scotland has agreed an 11th hour deal with finance union Unifi to avoid having to go to an employ-ment tribunal over its pension policies.

UK - An NAPF team is reviewing the state pension system and will recommend some key changes late next year.

UK - Attempts to improve industry standards for independent trustees are being hampered because of uncertainties over the Pensions Bill, experts claim.

UK - Threadneedle is expecting some "heated discussions" during its second annual conference this month.

UK - Gartmore Investment Man-agement is to reopen its European equity directional hedge fund, AlphaGen Velas, due to demand from schemes and other institutional investors.

UK - Life and pension providers will be able to cut inbound telephone calls by an average of 40% by the end of 2005, new research suggests.