Keith Webster

Partner

Picture of Keith Webster

Keith Webster

Partner

T +44 20 7367 2392
F +44 20 7367 2000
CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP
Cannon Place
78 Cannon Street
London
EC4N 6AF
United Kingdom
Languages English

Keith Webster is a partner in our award winning Pensions team. He advises trustees and employers running large occupational pension schemes on all areas of pensions related law.

He has particular expertise in investment and de-risking, including asset backed funding, insurance buy-ins and longevity hedging and is the current chairman of the Association of Pension Lawyers Investment Committee.

Keith also regularly advises pension providers on their pension products, ranging from master trusts, traditional insured arrangements and group personal pensions through to complex guaranteed income arrangements. Keith has wide experience of dispute resolution, including advising a number of firms of benefit consultants on risk and claims management and acting on Court applications in rectification and construction disputes relating to scheme rules.

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"Keith Webster of CMS has a reputation for his excellent technical abilities, with one commentator describing him as an ‘extremely talented and clever individual’."

Chambers & Partners

Leading Individual – Pensions

Legal 500, 2015

"Keith Webster of CMS has a reputation for his excellent technical abilities, with one commentator describing him as an ‘extremely talented and clever individual’."

Chambers & Partners

Leading Individual – Pensions

Legal 500, 2015

Relevant experience

  • Trustee clients range from a GBP 20m scheme to the multi-billion pound scheme of a high street bank.  Trustee advice includes:
    • An asset backed funding arrangement involving use of the employer’s key brands.
    • A Court application to confirm validity of scheme closure.
    • The implications of the takeover of the group parent company and consequent group refinancing including putting in place funding guarantees and security.
  • Advice for employers includes:
    • In relation to formal enforcement action taken by the Pensions Regulator following a failure to agree an actuarial valuation with the trustees.
    • On implications of historic invalid execution of scheme documentation.
    • Numerous scheme closure exercises.
  • Advice for pension providers includes:
    • A bulk annuity provider on numerous buy-in and buy-out transactions.
    • A leading benefit consultant on setting up DC master trust.
    • MetLife on set up and ongoing compliance of income guarantees within its drawdown personal pension product.
  • Chairman of a Business Action Group providing support from the business world to staff and pupils at a new sixth form College in Newham, East London.
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Education

  • 1995 - LPC, College of Law
  • 1994 - MA, St Johns College, Cambridge University
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Memberships

  • Fellow, Pensions Management Institute
  • Chair, Association of Pension Lawyers Investment Committee
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Publications

  • NAPF Guide to Investment Management Agreements ABI/NAPF Good Practice Guide to Bulk Insured Annuities
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Lectures list

  • 2016 - PMI Annual Conference: Responsibilities of Parties
  • 2016 - TISA Seminar: Legal pitfalls of the new retirement income space
  • 2016 - Association of Consulting Actuaries Annual Pensions Conference: Legal Update
  • 2015 - NAPF: Pensions and VAT
  • 2014 - Institute and Faculty of Actuaries annual conference: The Scheme Actuary as data controller
  • 2013 - LexisNexis: GMP Equalisation 
  • 2012 - APL Annual Conference: Asset backed funding structures
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Expertise

Pensions Employment & Pensions Dispute Resolution

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17/02/2016
Life, pen­sions & longev­ity risk
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Brochure
11/02/2019
“We’re com­ing for you”: new powers for The Pen­sions Reg­u­lat­or
The Gov­ern­ment has an­nounced an ex­tens­ive pack­age of meas­ures to strengthen the powers of The Pen­sions Reg­u­lat­or (TPR). TPR’s new powers may con­cen­trate the minds of busi­nesses with defined be­ne­fit schemes who are in­volved in cor­por­ate activ­ity.
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Law-Now Employment & Pensions
02/11/2015
The Ab­ol­i­tion of Con­tract­ing-out: What can DB schemes...
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Publication Pensions
05/02/2019
Trust­ee Know­ledge Up­date Feb­ru­ary 2019
Trust­ees of oc­cu­pa­tion­al pen­sion schemes have a stat­utory duty to en­sure that they have an ad­equate know­ledge and un­der­stand­ing of the leg­al is­sues rel­ev­ant to their scheme. They must also en­sure that they are up to date with rel­ev­ant changes in the law which,.
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Law-Now Employment & Pensions
02/11/2015
Em­ploy­ers face high­er costs due to VAT changes
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Publication Pensions
06/09/2018
PPF com­pens­a­tion re­gime in breach of EU law
The Court of Justice of the European Uni­on (CJEU) has ruled today that the Pen­sion Pro­tec­tion Fund re­gime does not sat­is­fy European law re­quire­ments. The judg­ment is likely to have a sig­ni­fic­ant im­pact on the PPF, and could have wider knock-on ef­fects for many.
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Law-Now Employment & Pensions
12/05/2015
Om­buds­man out­lines ap­proach to sus­pec­ted lib­er­a­tion...
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Publication Pensions
27/06/2018
Faster, high­er, stronger: new powers for TPR
The Gov­ern­ment has is­sued “A Stronger Pen­sions Reg­u­lat­or”, the first of its prom­ised con­sulta­tions on defined be­ne­fit pen­sions fol­low­ing the is­sue of its White Pa­per in March.   The con­sulta­tion pro­poses po­ten­tially sig­ni­fic­ant changes to the ex­ist­ing no­ti­fi­able.
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Law-Now Employment & Pensions
23/04/2015
New Om­buds­man rul­ings on trans­fers to al­leged lib­er­a­tion...
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Publication Pensions
30/05/2018
Box Clev­er: the Reg­u­lat­or breathes a sigh of re­lief
The Up­per Tribunal (Tax and Chan­cery) has handed down a land­mark de­cision in the ‘Box Clev­er’ case, ITV PLC v The Pen­sions Reg­u­lat­or [2018] UKUT 0164 (TCC). The judg­ment not only up­holds the Reg­u­lat­or’s is­sue of fin­an­cial sup­port dir­ec­tions in the present case,.
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Law-Now Employment & Pensions
27/03/2015
VAT re­cov­ery on pen­sion fund man­age­ment - fur­ther HM­RC...
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Publication Pensions
19/03/2018
Change is in the air for DB schemes
Over a year since the Gov­ern­ment’s ex­plor­at­ory Green Pa­per on defined be­ne­fit pen­sion schemes, a White Pa­per has fi­nally ar­rived, with a num­ber of pro­pos­als for re­form. There is plenty for trust­ees and em­ploy­ers to di­gest.
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Law-Now Employment & Pensions
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