Deirdre Phillips is a partner in our Johannesburg office Employment and Benefits Practice.  She has significant knowledge and experience in all aspects of pension law, medical schemes and employee benefits law.  She has been specializing in pensions and employee benefits since 2009.   Deirdre is the youngest female lawyer in South Africa with her level of expertise in pension law, being her main focus.  Deirdre also has experience in general financial services regulation and insurance law.

Deirdre provides legal opinions to retirement funds, their boards, principal offices, administrators and other providers of products and services to retirement funds. She also advises employers on their rights and obligations in relation to occupational retirement funds to which their members or employees belong.

In addition to legal opinions, she also provides training on relevant legal issues, and has litigation experience.  She has acted for clients in matters before the Magistrate’s Court, High Court, Supreme Court of Appeal, the Pension Funds Adjudicator and the Financial Sector Tribunal.

She has LLB degree from North-West University and a Certificate in Pensions Law from the University of the Witwatersrand.

Relevant Experience

• Deirdre has experience in, amongst other financial sector law, the Pension Funds Act, Financial Institutions (Protection of Funds) Act, Medical Schemes Act, Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act, the new Financial Sector Regulation Act, and the Insurance Act.
• Deirdre has experience in data protection law and has recently assisted in a project in the financial services sector in which she specializes and included conducting an audit of client contracts and terms and conditions and sector-specific legislation in relation to pension funds, insurance, and financial advisory services for a major client in the financial services sector in the context of a proposed cross-border transfer of client data, and preparing a report on practical steps to be taken to mitigate the risks
• Advising one of South Africa’s largest pension fund administrators in relation to an industry-wide Financial Services Board inspection into alleged irregular pension fund deregistrations, 2015 – present.

• South Africa: Withholding pension benefits: Legal requirements an employer must satisfy to interdict a retirement fund from paying out pension benefits
• South Africa: Employers take note – a new Conduct Standard on the requirements related to the payment of retirement fund contributions and submission of prescribed information
• South Africa: FSCA discussion paper on a framework for unclaimed assets
• South Africa: Is the proposed two-pot retirement system ‘stirring the pot’ in the retirement fund industry?
• South Africa: Draft Conduct Standard – Prescribed conditions for retirement fund benefit administrators
• South African Supreme Court of Appeal declares Regulation 35(4) invalid
• South African provident funds annuitisation: Feel it – it is here (and no, it is not the world cup)!
• FSCA publishes the final Conduct Standard for minimum skills and training requirements for board members of retirement funds
• Financial Services Tribunal decision on its jurisdiction over decisions by the Registrar of Medical Schemes
• FSCA publishes several draft Conduct Standards relating to retirement funds for public comment
• Exemption of insurers that offer investment policies to medical schemes, South Africa
• COVID-19: Tax treatment of TERS benefits, South Africa
• COVID-19: Financial reprieve for members of medical schemes and SMMEs
• COVID-19: Employer considerations on risk benefit insurance premiums and cover when reducing salaries
• COVID-19: Amended Regulations – essential services expanded to include broader financial services and financial markets activity, South Africa
• COVID-19: FCSA’s expectations of regulated entities – South Africa
• COVID-19: Impact on medical scheme contributions by financially distressed employers and employees
• COVID-19: FSCA gives financially distressed employers breathing space over fund contributions
• COVID-19: Impact on compliance with various regulatory deadline requirements in South Africa
• How to check that your retirement savings are invested in good causes rather than bad
• SCA ruling on death benefits for dependants
• Retirement funds take wait-and-see view of Crowdfunding Investments
• Second draft Regulation 37, 38 and 39 to the Pension Funds Act published for public comment
• Retirement Funds risk being used for money laundering
• Lawyer urges employers to ‘do whatever they can to maintain’ unapproved risk benefits