The High Court has ordered that Arnotts Ltd be joined as a defendant to proceedings brought by a former managing director of the company over the failure to transfer his pension, valued at some €5.3 million, to another pension scheme.

Mr Justice Peter Kelly said it was "entirely artificial" for Seamus Duignan to suggest that the circumstances of his departure from Arnotts was not the main issue in proceedings brought by Mr Duignan against the trustees of the Arnotts Staff Pension Fund.

The joinder of Arnotts Ltd to the action as a defendant would allow Mr Duignan to have determined in a binding way his assertion that his departure from Arnotts on January 31st, 2004, was not by way of retirement, the judge said. If it was by retirement, he was not entitled to have his pension funds transferred.

The judge noted that the trustees of the pension fund had said they were not privy to the circumstances of Mr Duignan's departure from the company and had acted on the basis of information given to them.

In his action, Mr Duignan is claiming that under the rules of the pension fund and its trust deed, and also under the provisions of the Pensions Act 1990, he is entitled to have his pension transferred to another retirement benefit scheme.

He is alleging that the trustees failed to properly consider and/or effect the transfer of his pension entitlements.

Mr Duignan claims his employmenty terminated on January 31st, 2004, but not by way of retirement and that he at all times intended to transfer his pension entitlements to another scheme. He had set up an alternative pension scheme which was approved by the Revenue Commissioners. However, the trustees failed to transfer the pension on the basis that his employer, Arnotts, considered his termination to be a retirement and this disentitled him to a transfer of his pension entitlements.