Facts
The pension fund of the city of Lucerne, a public-law pension institution, amended its regulations in 2000 to switch from a premium rate procedure to a full funding procedure. The Evangelical Reformed Church of the canton of Lucerne and seven other affiliated employers applied to the supervisory authority not to approve the amendment to the regulations and terminated the affiliation agreement. The supervisory authority and the Federal Commission of Appeal for Occupational Old-Age, Survivors' and Disability Insurance dismissed the complaint.
The complainants filed an administrative appeal with the Federal Court and requested that the amendment to the regulations be revoked, as it had been made without their consent and violated good faith. The pension fund of the city of Lucerne and the Commission of Appeal requested that the complaint be dismissed.
Considerations
The Federal Court examined the legality of the amendment to the regulations and the question of whether the complainants had given their consent. It found that the supervisory authority and the lower court had assumed that the complainants had authorized the Grand City Council of Lucerne to amend the regulations and had thus implicitly given their consent.
However, the court found that prior consent to amendments to the regulations was only permissible if the affected employers had the opportunity to terminate in good time to avoid an undesirable amendment to the regulations. It found that the complainants would have had the opportunity…