Actuarial valuation (443,-666)

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Keywords: Actuarial valuation
Total judgments found: 3

• Judgment 4498

  
  134th Session, 2022
  European Organization for Nuclear Research
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR
  Summary: The complainant contests the decision to reject his claim concerning a surviving spouse’s pension.

  Consideration 23

  Extract:

  [I]t can be inferred from the Tribunal’s case law (see Judgment 3538, considerations 11 to 15) that, where the impugned decision is based on the opinion of an expert – as it is, in the present case, the Actuary – the complainants cannot merely submit their divergent analysis in order to refute that opinion. They should rather provide “evidence from authorities of equivalent weight”. Only such evidence might potentially be apt to demonstrate the possible flaws in the expert opinion underpinning the impugned decision. In the present case, the complainant’s arguments against the methodology adopted by the Actuary are not supported by any expert opinion of equivalent weight.

  Reference(s)

  ILOAT Judgment(s): 3538
  

  Keywords:

  actuarial valuation; expert inquiry; methodology; pension;
  

  
  
  

• Judgment 4422

  
  132nd Session, 2021
  European Patent Organisation
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR
  Summary: The complainants are former permanent employees of the European Patent Office who challenge their January 2014 and subsequent payslips showing an increase in their pension contributions.

  Considerations 14-15

  Extract:

  In considerations 14 and 15 of Judgment 3538, the Tribunal stated that a decision to increase the pension contribution rate may be challenged if a complainant provides evidence from an expert in the field of actuarial studies to demonstrate flaws in the methodology used in the actuarial study and that, in any event, even if a complainant provides such expert evidence it would not necessarily follow that the decision of the Administrative Council or the implementation decision to deduct the higher pension contribution rate from a complainant’s payslip would be unlawful. This, as the Tribunal stated in Judgment 3538, consideration 15, is because “[t]he power clearly vested in the Administrative Council to alter the pension scheme can be exercised lawfully if it represents a bona fide attempt to secure the pension scheme into the future [...] based on what appears to be reasoned actuarial advice”.
  Acknowledging the requirement that they had to provide evidence from an expert to demonstrate flaws in the methodology used in the actuarial study, the complainants state that they delivered “a full mathematical proof” in the internal appeal procedures, which is still valid, casting doubt upon the Actuarial Advisory Group’s recommendations. However, they state that they did not file their calculations in the Tribunal proceedings because they would be ignored. Critically, they have not provided evidence from an expert to demonstrate flaws in the methodology used in the underlying actuarial study. Their arguments in the present proceedings that the actuaries fully relied upon the materials provided by one party to the proceedings (the EPO) and that the Actuarial Advisory Group had to accept all the boundary conditions imposed by the EPO, such as a politically pre-determined interest rate and politically pre-determined size of the Reserve Fund for Pensions and Social Security, which results in staff members paying pension contribution rates that are too high, do not obviate their need to provide expert evidence of the nature the Tribunal outlined in Judgment 3538.

  Reference(s)

  ILOAT Judgment(s): 3538
  

  Keywords:

  actuarial valuation; expert inquiry; pension;
  

  
  
  

• Judgment 1392

  
  78th Session, 1995
  European Patent Organisation
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR

  Consideration 34

  Extract:

  Whereas the right to a pension "is no doubt inviolable, a pension contribution is by its very nature subject to variation [...]. Far from infringing any acquired right a rise in contribution that is warranted for sound actuarial reasons [...] actually affords the best safeguard against the threat that lack of foresight may pose to the future value of pension benefits."

  Keywords:

  acquired right; actuarial valuation; contributions; increase; pension;
  

  Consideration 36

  Extract:

  The complainant objects to the actuarial method which the organisation used in a study of the pension fund's foreseeable costs. "Like any public authority, the EPO enjoys a presumption in its favour - especially when it is taking technical measures and it has done thorough preparatory work - that its choice of actuarial method is the most suitable and the fairest. [...] It is of course open to a staff member under a system of administrative law to challenge the organisation's choice, but he must be able to adduce evidence to show why the chosen method, when compared with others, may suffer from technical flaws that should have disqualified it."

  Keywords:

  actuarial valuation; burden of proof; contributions; discretion; evidence; increase; judicial review; mistake of fact; organisation; pension; reckoning; right of appeal;