Stanchart to exit Kenya, East African regional market- declines s court’s order to pay pensioners sh5.7B
The Standard Chartered Bank is rumored to be planning to sell its business in Kenya and the region.
According to credible sources, this is the reason the Bank has appealed a court’s decision ordering it to recalculate former employees benefits that were slashed because of using wrong actuarial factors.
The sources said the case messes up the bank prospects and that’s the main reason its fighting hard.
“Exiting the region is a conspiracy to deny retirees their well-deserved pension because the new entrant is unlikely to honor a decade long court battle they are not aware of. This is even after the London based mother bank had released all the court verdict amount immediately after the ruling,” the source said.
On Thursday, former Standard Chartered Bank staff were taken aback by the court ruling.
They will have to wait longer for their dues after the High Court suspended a decision directing the lender to recalculate their benefits that were slashed because of using wrong actuarial factors.
Justice Anthony Ndung’u allowed the bank to challenge the decision of the Retirement Benefits Appeals Tribunal, a move that will see the 629 retirees wait longer for the dues.
The Business Daily reported.
The pensioners have been in court for more than 13 years and some of them have since died.
The pensioners sued their former employer and the Standard Chartered Bank Kenya Pension Fund accusing them of reducing their lump sum payment by using incorrect actuarial factors in computing cash values for both the deferred pensioners and commuted values for immediate pensioners.
“As regards to plea that the leave so granted operates as a stay, I have applied my mind to the facts disclosed and the applicable law. In order that these proceedings are not rendered nugatory, it is ordered that the leave granted is to operate as a stay,” the judge ruled.
The Business Daily went on to report that the pensioners moved to court in 2009 seeking to compel the lender to pay them Sh9 billion as balance of lump sum pension benefits and interest plus a refund of Sh1.1 billion to the fund and paid together with interest totaling to Sh5.79 billion.
The lender has faulted the tribunal saying the retirees failed to tender any evidence to support the claims of their allegations on the computation of their benefits.
The bank further said the tribunal erred by ordering it to disclose to the retirees all the actuarial and other factors to be used in the re-calculation of their retirement benefits.
In the decision made in April, the tribunal noted that from the programme of early retirement introduced by the bank in 1999, the retirees who left their jobs at 50 years were entitled to their commuted lump sums and pension immediately and all those who retired below 50 years were entitled to commuted lump sums immediately and their pension would be deferred until they were 50 years.
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