Section 59E of The Pensions Act (inserted by the Pensions (Amendment) Act 2002) provided for regulations to be made requiring Trustees who are proposing to make a bulk transfer in respect of a group of members to another arrangement to provide information to those members before the transfer takes place. The Occupational Pension Schemes (Duties of Trustees in Connection with Bulk Transfer) Regulations 2009, which were signed into law on 7 May 2009 and come into effect on 1 August 2009, set out the requirements on Trustees in relation to bulk transfers without member consent. A bulk transfer is defined in the Act as a transfer of an amount of money by the Trustees of a Scheme in discharge of liability under the Scheme to provide benefits to a group of members.

The regulations do not apply to individual transfers e.g. transfers without member consent under Section 35 of the Pensions Act, in respect of which separate notification and information requirements apply. The requirements do apply in the context of a bulk transfer on winding up, and are in addition to the requirements of the Disclosure Regulations brought into effect in December 2007.

The Bulk Transfer Regulations require Trustees who propose to make a bulk transfer to notify the affected members and any authorised trade union representing them at least 2 months in advance of the date of transfer, giving details of the circumstances giving rise to the transfer, specifying the benefit structures of the transferring and receiving schemes (including discretionary benefit practice and the treatment of surplus), and the benefits that are to be granted to the transferring members in the receiving Scheme. Information must be provided in relation to any adverse effect on the transferring members and any charges to be paid by them as a consequence of the transfer. If the transfer is made to a defined benefit scheme, an actuarial statement must be provided setting out the manner in which the benefits to be granted are calculated and the allowance made for discretionary benefit practices, and confirming whether the minimum transfer value from the receiving scheme immediately following the bulk transfer will be at least equal to that which was available from the transferring scheme immediately before the bulk transfer. In addition, the Actuary has to certify whether, if the receiving Scheme were to be wound up immediately after the bulk transfer, the payment which would be received by each transferring member in respect of the bulk transfer would be at least equal to the payment which would have been received from the transferring scheme had it been wound up immediately before the transfer. The Actuary must also advise whether the ratio of assets to liabilities (on the minimum funding standard basis) in the receiving Scheme following the transfer is likely to be at least equal to the same ratio in the transferring Scheme immediately before the transfer.

The notification to members must state that they have the right to make observations within one month for consideration by the Trustees or employer. Before the bulk transfer is made, the transferring Trustees or the employer must consider the observations made for a period of not less than one month before the bulk transfer can take place. If there is a material change in the terms relating to the bulk transfer, this must be notified to the members and they must be given a further month to make observations before the transfer can be effected.