Lesley Browning

Practice Areas

Lesley Browning is a pensions lawyer based in London and head of the UK Pensions team. She graduated from Keble College, Oxford.

She has experience of all types of pensions-related work, including general advisory work for trustees, sponsoring employers, master trusts, insurance companies and firms of benefit consultants.

Lesley advises on day-to-day pensions regulatory and governance issues, corporate transactions, pensions scheme mergers, restructuring pension arrangements, winding-up pension schemes and investment and custody agreements. She also advises insurance companies and banks on pension products, including the drafting of trust based documents and more recently she has advised clients on master trust authorisation issues. She has also advised various clients on liabilities to industry wide schemes, such as the Merchant Navy Officers Pension Scheme and the Merchant Navy Ratings Pension Scheme.

Lesley's corporate experience includes extensive advice on dealing with underfunded schemes, including on section 75 of the Pensions Act 1995, the moral hazard provisions set out in the Pensions Act 2004, recovery plans and dealing with the PPF. She has advised on contingent assets, guarantees, recovery plans and other scheme funding issues. She also has extensive pensions litigation experience and her recent advisory work includes advising on de-risking issues, such as buy-outs, buy-ins, escrow arrangements, pension increase exchanges and enhanced transfer value exercises.

Lesley is acknowledged as a pensions expert by Chambers Guide to the Legal Profession and The Legal 500 directory. Lesley is praised as "a safe pair of hands. We trust her absolutely and she always delivers. A pleasure to work with" in The Legal 500 UK 2023. Chambers & Partners, 2023 noted "she is personable, practical and able to cut through a lot of information to get to the nub of the issue." In 2009 and 2012, Lesley was featured in the Financial News 100 Most Influential Women in Finance.

Lesley is a member of the Association of Pension Lawyers and has served on both its education and seminars and main committees. She is also a member of the PLSA City and Eastern Group, the International Pensions and Employee Benefits Lawyers Association and the PLSA Pensions Legal Panel.

Lesley is a regular speaker and has contributed articles to (and been quoted in) a wide range of pension publications, including Pensions Week, Pensions World, Pensions Age, Professional Pensions, Insurance Day, Mallowstreet, Employee Benefits and the OPDU Report.