Firms may be sued over pension losses

IRELAND’S largest trade union may take a class action lawsuit against multinational companies which have lost significant amounts of employee pension funds through malpractice or inside trading.

SIPTU general secretary Joe O’Flynn said union officials had recently met with US fraud lawyers who were pursuing hundreds of similar cases in America on behalf of employees whose pension funds had been decimated.

“Worldwide, many pension funds have been affected by the downturn in the equities markets following September 11. But since Enron, there have been many cases where pension funds have been essentially destroyed through inside trading and malpractice on the part of company management,” he said.