PostNL has decided not to appeal against the verdict to top up its under-covered pension fundsand will therefore have to pay unconditional top-up payments worth €64 million.
The decision was made as the Dutch postal operator aims to find a sustainable solution for thepensions in dialogue with the main pension fund. “This is in the interest of all parties involved,”the company said.
In December last year, a Dutch ‘dispute committee’ backed the company’s pension funds in adispute between the two sides over what level of coverage the pension funds should have and whetheradditional top-up payments are necessary or not. According to last year’s verdict, PostNL had topay €84 million to the funds while an additional €49 million payment would be suspended if itappealed against the decision.
By the end of the third quarter 2012, the coverage ratio of the main pension fund was 102.2%,including the top-up payments considered receivable from PostNL. This is below the minimumrequirement of 104.1%. PostNL’s pension coverage has fluctuated in recent years, dropping from highover-coverage levels in 2009 and 2010 to 100% last year and in Q1, 2012 and just 97% in Q2,2012.
PostNL processes approximately 8.7 billion addressed postal items (including 106 millionparcels) employing a total of around 65,500 people. Outside the Netherlands, it operates inGermany, the UK, Italy, Belgium and Luxemburg.
