The National Court has condemned Iberdrola and its subsidiaries to revalue the 2022 pensions with the 2021 CPI (6.5%) and not 2.5% as the electric company intended, understanding that pension plans and funds “do not born from the gracious will of the employer”, but from collective bargaining. On a date sentenced on December 12, to which EFE had access, the social room estimated the demand of the CGT, UGT FICA and CCOO Industry unions, to which ELA later joined.
The plaintiffs explained that “at least since 2004 the benefits of the plan have been regularizing according to the increase in the CPI, and it is in 2022 when a different formula is used”, which was not approved by the control commission.
Iberdrola alleged lack of passive legitimacy of the mercantile companies, and that it would only affect certain groups, in addition to pointing out that those affected are not employees of the company but passive; pensions have been revalued in accordance with the increases established for public pensions, and a provisional increase has been applied to them and subsequently readjusted to the real CPI, as does Social Security. Iberdrola, together with BBVA pensions, which is the managing entity, and Nationale Nederlanden, as insurer, claimed that the benefits of the funds constitute voluntary improvements to Social Security.
For all this, the beneficiaries of the pension plans received a letter in which they explained that to avoid having to return what was received in excess of the income already paid, “the excess will be deducted from the future income of the policy” . But the National Court understands that the norm establishes, “without interpretive error, that the benefits were revalued according to 100% of the final increase in the annual CPI, which was carried out by initially increasing them according to the expected CPI and then correcting them to adapt them to the CPI really and definitely once known”.
The room points out that pension plans and funds of the employment system “are not born from the will of the employer, but rather the law that regulates them binds them to collective bargaining”, therefore “they are the result of a collective agreement between employer and worker representatives.
