According to press reports, Merrill Lynch has settled the case being brought against it by the trustees of the Unilever Pension Fund. The trustees had alleged negligent mismanagement of their pension fund assets. Details of the settlement are not known.
It is a shame that there will not be a High Court judgment in the case, as it may well have made interesting comments about the duties and potential liabilities of investment managers. However, a similar case may yet come to court as other schemes (particularly those who used Mercury Asset Management) will be reviewing the past performance of their investment managers. In addition, even though there is no judgment, in settling Merrill Lynch will almost certainly have considered that they were exposed to some liability. We may well see fund managers being more careful in the performance targets they accept and tightening up on their risk controls.
