Judgment 4057
127th Session, 2019
World Trade Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Summary: The complainant challenges the decision to reduce her pension on the basis of a reduction of the consumer price index.
Judgment keywords
Keywords:
complaint dismissed; pension; pension adjustment system;
Consideration 3
Extract:
A consumer price index is typically a measure of movements from time to time in the prices of a basket of goods or services, usually relative to a base point established some time earlier. While often, historically, those movements have been upwards (that is, increasing relative to the base point), the very nature of the index will mean there will be downward movements at times of deflation when the price of the basket of goods and services tends towards the base point. The language of Article 32(b), and in particular the word “adjusted”, makes clear that the retirement benefits will be adjusted upwards or downwards (and potentially remain constant) depending on the movement in the Swiss consumer price index.
Keywords:
consumer price index; cost-of-living increase; pension; pension adjustment system;
Consideration 5
Extract:
The Tribunal has, in its case law, spoken of pensions being “deferred pay” and stated that because “pensions are subject to the same basic rules as pay, a method establishing the terms of adjusting the pensions paid to the retirees of an organisation is to be considered as being governed by the same requirements” (see Judgment 2793, consideration 20). This was a reference to the need that any methodology adopted to determine staff members’ salary adjustments must result in stable, foreseeable and clearly understood results. [...] The principles governing the adjustments to salary also include the Noblemaire principle which, additionally, applies to pension benefits (see Judgment 986, consideration 7).
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 986, 2793
Keywords:
noblemaire principle; pension; pension adjustment system; pension entitlements; salary;
Consideration 6
Extract:
The Tribunal’s case law does not establish a principle that there can never be a downward adjustment of pensions (that there can be such downward adjustments is apparently accepted by the complainant in her rejoinder) and indeed there is a theme in the case law that it is entirely appropriate to have, in the rules governing pension funds, a provision to preserve the purchasing power of the pension, to protect staff members from “the adverse repercussions of a rise in the cost of living on their purchasing power and hence in theory to maintain the standard of living their pension initially secured for them” (see Judgment 2615, consideration 6). As a matter of logic and fairness, this approach would justify a reduction in pensions in the face of falling costs of living.
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 2615
Keywords:
adjustment; pension; pension adjustment system; pension entitlements;
Judgment 3676
122nd Session, 2016
European Southern Observatory
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Summary: The complainant contests a modification in the exchange rate averaging methodology for the calculation of his pension contributions.
Consideration 10
Extract:
[A]bsent the amendments recently made to the methodology, ESO is assuming a disproportionately greater burden of satisfying the requirements under the Fund to pay the total contributions payable in relation to the complainant and other staff. This is a legitimate consideration and militates against a conclusion that the alteration of the methodology used involved an alteration of a fundamental term of employment that would be protected by the principle concerning acquired rights.
Keywords:
acquired right; pension adjustment system;
Consideration 6
Extract:
[A]ny methodology that is dependent on exchange rates, which have an inherent propensity to fluctuate, will not be stable or foreseeable in the sense that the outcome is, in advance, predictable.
Keywords:
exchange rate; pension adjustment system;
Considerations 7-8
Extract:
The basic principle is that an amendment to an official’s detriment of a provision governing her or his status constitutes a breach of an acquired right only if it adversely affects the balance of contractual obligations by altering fundamental terms of employment in consideration of which the official accepted an appointment, or which subsequently induced her or him to stay on. In the present case the Tribunal accepts that there was an alteration to a term on which the complainant was employed in the sense that the method of calculating his contribution to the pension fund was altered and, at least at the present moment, increased the contribution and, in that regard, it might be said to be an alteration to his detriment. [...]
In Judgment 832, consideration 14, the Tribunal identified three tests to determine whether the altered term is fundamental and essential. The second test was the reason for the change. Importantly, the Tribunal recognised that ordinarily there would be no acquired right when a rule or a clause depends on variables such as the value of currency. So the mere fact that a pension contribution might change because of fluctuations in exchange rates would not engage the protection of the principle concerning acquired rights.
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 832
Keywords:
acquired right; pension adjustment system;
Judgment 2793
106th Session, 2009
European Organization for Nuclear Research
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 20
Extract:
The principle deriving from the above-mentioned case law [Judgments 1265, 1419 and 1821] that the methodology adopted by an international organisation to determine its staff members’ salary adjustments must result in stable, foreseeable and clearly understood results also applies to retirement pensions. The latter must be seen as deferred pay, and in accordance with the principle established by the Tribunal in Judgment 986 that pensions are subject to the same basic rules as pay, a method establishing the terms of adjusting the pensions paid to the retirees of an organisation is to be considered as being governed by the same requirements.
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 986, 1265, 1419, 1821
Keywords:
pension adjustment system;
Judgment keywords
Keywords:
complaint dismissed; pension adjustment system;
Judgment 2633
103rd Session, 2007
European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 7
Extract:
"Where a decision to introduce a new pension scheme is taken on grounds of financial necessity, such as the need to address the rising cost of pensions, the Tribunal cannot consider it to be invalid merely because it leads to a situation that is less favourable to employees."
Keywords:
amendment to the rules; budgetary reasons; decision; decision quashed; grounds; increase; injury; judicial review; official; organisation's interest; pension; pension adjustment system;
Judgment 2632
103rd Session, 2007
European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 13
Extract:
"[T]he complainants assert that their acquired rights were breached because the Agency abandoned a practice, applied to them from 1 January to 30 June 2005, involving the application to pensions of the same weightings as were applied to the remuneration of serving officials. But a practice of salary and pension adjustment, even where repeated, does not bind the Organisation that adopted it, which is at liberty to abandon it provided that it does so lawfully (see in this connection Judgment 2089). As for acquired rights, they could not be held to have been breached unless the contested reform impaired a fundamental and essential term of the complainants' conditions of appointment, which include the right to a pension (see aforementioned Judgment 2089 and the case law cited therein). This is clearly not the case here."
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 2089
Keywords:
acquired right; adjustment; amendment to the rules; breach; condition; cost-of-living weighting; discretion; enforcement; formal requirements; injury; organisation's duties; pension; pension adjustment system; pension entitlements; practice; salary; terms of appointment;
Judgment 2615
102nd Session, 2007
European Organization for Nuclear Research
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 6
Extract:
The purpose of the pension adjustment provided for in Article II 1.15 of the Rules of the Pension Fund is to protect retired staff members from the adverse repercussions of a rise in the cost of living on their purchasing power and hence in theory to maintain the standard of living their pension initially secured for them. When making this adjustment active members and retirees must be treated equally as far as possible.
Nevertheless, consideration should be given to preserving retirees’ standard of living not just in the short term. They must be protected not only against the periodic erosion of their purchasing power but also against management measures that are liable to jeopardise the actual maintenance of their pension payments. Consequently, the obligation to adjust pensions from time to time in line with a rise in the cost of living is limited by the need to ensure the health of the pension scheme (see Judgment 2089).
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 2089
Keywords:
pension adjustment system;
Consideration 8
Extract:
Of course the Tribunal realises that this decision imposes a particular sacrifice on the beneficiaries of a retirement
pension. But in view of the short-term nature of this sacrifice, its relatively limited scope, a reference rate of inflation of 1.7 per cent and the fact that it forms part of a package of measures, the Tribunal cannot hold that in adopting such a measure the CERN Council abused the discretion it must be allowed in deciding whether to adjust pensions in the light of the financial capacity of the Pension Fund over which it exercises supreme authority.
Keywords:
discretion; pension; pension adjustment system;
Judgment 2089
92nd Session, 2002
European Molecular Biology Laboratory
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 15
Extract:
From 1986 to 2000 the organisation followed the practice followed by the coordinated organizations in adjusting both salaries and pensions in accordance with both cost-of-living and standard-of-living adjustments. In July 2000 it made a cost-of-living adjustment mandatory for pensions even if no such adjustment is made to salaries, but no provision is made for standard-of-living adjustment to pensions. "It is to no avail that the complainants criticise the effectiveness of the change or the accuracy of the calculations on which it was based, for those are not matters within the Tribunal's competence."
Keywords:
adjustment; amendment to the rules; competence of tribunal; coordinated organisations; cost-of-living increase; iloat; no provision; pension; pension adjustment system; period; practice; reckoning; salary;
Consideration 16
Extract:
"To accept that pensions must always be adjusted to keep in line with post-retirement salary increases would be to expose pension funds to an uncertain and unmeasurable future liability which might well in the end wipe out the funds themselves."
Keywords:
acceptance; adjustment; discontinuance; increase; pension; pension adjustment system; retirement; salary; separation from service; special hazard; subsequent fact; unjspf;
Consideration 9
Extract:
From 1986 to 2000 the organisation followed the practice followed by the coordinated organizations in adjusting both salaries and pensions in accordance with both cost-of-living and standard-of-living adjustments. In July 2000 it made a cost-of-living adjustment mandatory for pensions even if no such adjustment is made to salaries, but no provision is made for standard-of-living adjustment to pensions. "It is simply untenable to argue that the [organisation] could, by following the practice of the coordinated organizations in previous years, bind itself to do so for all time [...] There can be no doubt that the same body that had the authority to adopt [the] decision [to follow the practice followed by the coordinated organizations] had equally the authority to decide to withdraw it."
Keywords:
adjustment; amendment to the rules; competence; coordinated organisations; cost-of-living increase; decision quashed; executive body; no provision; organisation's duties; pension; pension adjustment system; period; practice; salary;
Judgment 1456
79th Session, 1995
European Patent Organisation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 26
Extract:
"By taking the German administration's figures the organisation endorsed them and subsumed them in its own decision. The figures thus become inseparable from the decision for the purpose of any litigation [...]; the EPO may not properly refer the complainants to the national administration; and that administration may not properly intervene in the organisation's decision."
Keywords:
decision; domestic law; organisation; pension adjustment system; pension entitlements;
Consideration 25
Extract:
"No doubt national institutions that run pension schemes are better able to evaluate entitlements that may have accrued to the employee under one or more national schemes before recruitment [...]". No doubt the national institution has the last word on the figure to be used. But the organisation remains "free by virtue of its administrative and financial autonomy to discard any figure that the institution has worked out on some basis that offends against the prescriptions of the international regulations. It is free, too, to ask the institution to work out a new figure in the event of disagreement."
Keywords:
domestic law; independence; international civil service principles; organisation; pension; pension adjustment system; pension entitlements;
Judgment 278
37th Session, 1976
International Patent Institute
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Considerations
Extract:
"The complaints are seeking to have quashed decisions whereby the Administrative Council [...] refused to revise the application to them of the staff pension scheme [...]. Thus what are being impugned are individual decisions, even though they are based entirely on a decision of a general character affecting all staff members."
Keywords:
adjustment; application for quashing; competence of tribunal; decision; executive body; general decision; individual decision; pension; pension adjustment system; receivability of the complaint; refusal;
