On the go: Renewable energy business Aten Global has been fined £1,000 by the Pensions Ombudsman and ordered to pay missing pension contributions to an employee.
Mrs G began working at Aten Global in October 2018. She said that the employer stopped paying into the scheme in July 2020, and is due £1,242.07 in contributions.
In April 2022, the ombudsman’s office wrote to Aten Global to ask for more information in response to the complaint, a request that was repeated in May.
The office has not received a response from the employer, whose accounts are listed as overdue on Companies House.
Aten Global could not be reached for comment.
In the opinion of the adjudicator — who was only able to base her opinion on facts presented by Mrs G, since the company had not responded to the ombudsman’s office — contributions had been deducted from Mrs G’s salary that had not been paid into the scheme. Aten Global had not paid into the scheme over the same period.
The adjudicator awarded Mrs G £500 over the distress incurred by the dispute. Pensions Ombudsman Anthony Arter agreed with the adjudicator’s opinion, but increased the compensation to £1,000.
In addition to the fine and the restitution of contributions, Arter ordered Aten Global to produce a schedule showing the employee contributions deducted from Mrs G’s salary during her period of employment. This will also include the employer contributions that were supposed to be paid into the scheme.
Aten Global will also have to establish whether the late payment of contributions has meant that fewer units were purchased in Mrs G’s scheme account than she would have had otherwise, had the contributions been paid on time.
The company will have to pay any reasonable administration fee should the scheme administrator charge a fee for carrying out the calculation.
