Doing Business in the Netherlands 2012 - American Chamber of ...

Doing Business in the Netherlands 2012
is to contribute to the attractiveness of the Netherlands as a country of
residence for pension institutions.
The Dutch Cabinet has split the legislative process in the following
phases:
� Introduction of a Premium Pension Institution
(Premiepensioeninstelling, PPI)
� Introduction of a Multi Pension Fund
� Introduction of API (not completed yet)
The PPI is a new pension administrator (alongside pension funds and
pension insurers) with limited costs and cross-border opportunities; its
“business” opportunities are, however, limited. This is because the
PPI could only operate as a pension provider for defined contribution
agreements and only in the accrual phase (i.e., it could not pay
pension benefits to pensioners). The legislative proposal for the
introduction of a PPI has been approved on December 2010.
By means of a Multi Pension Fund, (company) pension funds could
cooperate. This is especially important for smaller pension funds,
which were thus enabled to achieve cost savings and economies of
scale, to strengthen their negotiating position vis-à-vis operators such
as asset managers and administrators and, finally, to make joint
progress in meeting pension fund governance requirements. The
legislative proposal for the introduction of a Multi Pension Fund has
been approved on May 2010.
The API would also be a new pension administrator (alongside
pension funds and pension insurers). The API could also administer
defined benefit agreements. It is the purpose however that (most of)
the restrictive Dutch pension legislation (regarding for example
ringfencing, pension governance, etc.) will not be applicable to the
API. No legislative proposal in order to introduce the API has been
submitted yet.
Baker & McKenzie 145