This is Far From Over
The Norton Motorcycles collapse is a sad state of affairs. Now MPs from the Work and Pensions Committee have written to The Pensions Regulator (TPR) about what happened. In a letter to the regulator, the committee says the following, according to MoreBikes: “The arrangement began in 2012. Could The Pensions Regulator have acted before May 2019, some seven years later?”
The committee also made inquiries into when the TPR actually became aware of the conflict of interest in Garner’s actions with the three pension schemes in question.
What the committee is getting at is that the nefarious dealings with the Norton Motorcycles pensions should never have been able to go on for so long. These questions ask whether or not regulators should have gotten involved earlier to try to straighten things out.
While I don’t have all the answers, I will say that it seems that Norton, led by Stuart Garner, was able to get away with a whole heck of a lot before the company started seeing serious ramifications for its actions. What those ramifications will be has yet to be determined, but the questions raised by the committee don’t appear to be unwarranted.
According to MoreBikes the hearing about the pension schemes overseen by Garner won’t be had for another three months. At that time, the preliminary findings of the investigation that has been called will be published. It will be interesting to see what comes of all this.