The union-based Visteon pension legal challenge, which accuses Ford of providing employees with misleading pensions advice, will be heard in October or November next year.
The date for the hearing - which was lodged in January by Unite using former Visteon employee Dennis Varney as a test case (PP, 13 January) - was set at a case management conference on Tuesday.
Unite alleges Ford provided misleading information to its employees when it spun off car parts manufacturer Visteon in 2000.
Varney transferred benefits accrued over more than 32 years from the Ford Salaried Contributory Pension Fund into the Visteon UK Pension Plan with effect from April 2001 and was an active member until he retired in January 2006.
The claim alleges Ford made misleading statements to employees over the security of the Visteon scheme and failed to state there was any risk involved in transferring accrued rights.
The Visteon UK pension scheme entered into Pension Protection Fund assessment with a deficit of £350m when Visteon UK went into administration in 2009 and Unite's claim states that Ford is liable for the shortfall.
The claimant expects to recover damages of between £50,000 and £100,000 in a case which could affect up to 3,000 scheme members.
At the conference the judge turned down applications from the claimant to amend the particulars of the claim and obtain expert evidence on the relative strengths of the employer covenant for the Ford and Visteon schemes.
The judge, Master Bragge, said amendments regarding the retrospective comparative strengths of the employer covenants did not advance the claim and therefore expert evidence on this issue would not be permitted.
He refused a further application for a split trial to address issues of breach of duty and reliance and loss over concerns it could increase costs as, if the claim succeeded on a preliminary issue, two trials would be required.
The deadline for lodging a request to appeal these decisions is Monday 9 August 2011.
Elsewhere, the Visteon Pension Action Group has continued its fight against Ford in the European Parliament.
At a meeting with MEPs last month (PP Online, 14 June) the group agreed to raise a Euro petition based upon the European Works Council agreement signed by Ford directors and European trades unions at the time of the spin-off.
