Around 2,800 members of the Boxclever Group Pension Scheme are to receive uplifts to their benefits and back payments after they were fully transferred into the ITV Pension Scheme, the Pensions Regulator (TPR) has announced.
Box Clever members have been receiving benefits level with Pension Protection Fund compensation since 2014, but will now see these restored in full and back payments made early next year. The transfer was completed to the ITV scheme on 1 October.
In its half-year results to 30 June 2025, ITV said it had set aside £52m to cover the value of the liabilities being transferred into the ITV Pension Scheme.
This figure includes £25m of “additional funding” and a “surety bond”. These will be until either 31 March 2027 or the completion of the next actuarial valuation, ITV said.
The news brings to an end a 13-year-long saga involving repeated regulatory interventions and appeals. TPR announced a settlement with ITV last year, which triggered the transfer process.
TPR’s executive director of regulatory compliance, Gaucho Rasmussen, urged “everyone with an interest in DB schemes to read the report carefully to understand how we used our Financial Support Direction (FSD) powers to require ITV to put financial support in place for the Boxclever Group Pension Scheme”.
Box Clever was formed in 2000 as a joint venture between the TV rental businesses of ITV – then known as Granada – Carmelite, which was then Thorn. At the time, employees were transferred to the new company and enrolled in the Boxclever Group Pension Scheme.
However, after the company went into administration in 2003, the regulator sought payments from ITV to support the pension scheme, arguing that the television company had “extracted significant value from the joint venture”.
TPR issued FSDs to ITV and other related entities in 2020, but after no agreement resulted, the regulator sought the full buyout deficit last year, which was £77m. Following the 2024 agreement and the transfer, TPR has now “ceased its regulatory action against ITV and associated entities”.
ITV strikes deal with TPR to end Box Clever saga
Nearly 3,000 former Box Clever employees will receive their pension benefits in full after the Pensions Regulator struck a deal with ITV. Pensions Expert looks back on a 13-year saga in this article from July 2024. Read the full story.
In its report on the case, TPR said court rulings in its favour had helped clarify how it can use FSDs when seeking contributions from employers.
In particular, it highlighted a “substantive” Upper Tribunal hearing in January 2018, during which the targets of the FSDs challenged the regulator’s move on a number of counts, including the relationship between ITV, Box Clever, and the Boxclever Pension Scheme.
Following the hearing, the Upper Tribunal “concluded that it was reasonable to issue FSDs against ITV plc and the associated companies”.
The case was referred to the Court of Appeal, where it was heard in 2019, but the appeal was dismissed. A further appeal to the Supreme Court was refused in February 2020, leading to the FSDs being formally issued a month later.
It took a further four years of negotiations before the settlement was reached last year.
