Graham Williams

Consultant

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Practice areas

Employment

Graham has extensive experience of all aspects of UK pensions law and regulation, with a particular focus on occupational pension schemes, advising both employers and trustees.

Graham is a consultant, having joined the firm as a partner in 2001. He works closely with the firm’s corporate, charities, and employment practices, and the schools and higher education groups.

Graham has over 25 years' experience in pensions law, advising both employers and trustees of large and small pension schemes, in the private, public and voluntary sectors. His practice covers:

Scheme funding issues and employer liabilities
Pensions aspects of corporate transactions and mergers
Negotiating employment contracts, and compensation on termination of employment
Liability reduction strategies, including buy-outs, scheme closures, and benefit restructuring projects, and
Investment issues, including negotiation of investment management agreements, and hedge fund documentation.

When advising employers, his priority is always to help them find pragmatic and commercial solutions. When advising trustees, his focus is on navigating the hazards of regulatory intervention.

Graham qualified as a solicitor in 1981.

Expertise

Businesses

Graham has extensive experience of the pensions aspects of corporate transactions; tendering and outsourcing arrangements, particularly in the public and local government sphere, managing funding liabilities and "exit debts", alternative funding strategies such as "contingent assets", and the implementation of affordable benefit structures, and the associated workforce consultations and negotiations.

Not-for-Profit

Graham has a particular interest in the pensions issues affecting charities and the voluntary sector, including tendering and outsourcing transactions, and historical deficit issues in multi-employer schemes.

Education

Graham frequently advises schools, universities and other institutions on the challenges arising from participation in centralised pension schemes such as the Teachers' Pension Scheme, the Universities Superannuation Scheme, and the Local Government Pension Scheme.

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