Out-Law News 1 min. read
12 May 2017, 3:21 pm
The businesses named include those that the regulator has secured a court order against for failing to meet their auto enrolment duties and have subsequently failed to pay a fine issued in respect of their non-compliance. Other employers listed include those that have paid their 'escalating penalty notice' (EPN) but that remain non-compliant.
The Pensions Regulator said it could take "additional enforcement action" against employers that continue to flout the rules, and even raise prosecutions "in appropriate cases".
The publication of the lists are intended to "highlight the importance of employers meeting their automatic enrolment requirements" and emphasise that employers face "large fines" if they do not comply, the regulator said. It said it intends to update the lists every quarter.
Charles Counsell, executive director of automatic enrolment at the Pensions Regulator, said: "Employers who wilfully refuse to become compliant should be in no doubt that we will take enforcement action against them, as these lists show. Automatic enrolment is not an option, it is the law. Allowing some employers to get away with non-compliance is not fair on the employees who are denied the workplace pensions they are entitled to and is not fair on the vast majority of businesses who have taken the time to meet their responsibilities."
"To date we have only had to bring court proceedings against a tiny proportion of employers, but every court case is one too many – and one that employers can easily avoid by becoming compliant," he said.
Automatic enrolment began for the largest employers in October 2012, and is expected to lead to around 10 million people newly saving, or saving more, towards their retirement by 2018. The rules require employers to automatically enrol their workers into a defined contribution (DC) pension scheme which meets certain minimum requirements, and to make contributions towards the pensions of workers that do not opt out of the scheme once enrolled.