Expertise

Since becoming a Partner in 2005, Jade has been consistently ranked as a leading pensions legal expert in both the Chambers and The Legal 500 directories. Her Leeds based team has been ranked as the top rated pensions legal team in Yorkshire in the Chambers legal directory for many years.

Jade advises on all aspects of company and personal pension arrangements. She advises employers and trustee boards on managing their trust-based DB and DC schemes; auto-enrolment compliance and the outsourcing of pension provision; the pensions aspects of corporate M&A; joint ventures, and restructurings. Her broad practice area covers contentious and non-contentious work including court and Ombudsman proceedings and dispute resolution.

She advises employers and trustees in a wide range of sectors but has a particular focus on financial services, retail and consumer, manufacturing and universities.

Jade also heads our SIPPs, SSAS and pension products team and is one of only a handful of lawyers in the UK with genuine, wide ranging expertise in this specialised sector. She advises scheme trustees, operators, third party administrators and service providers, wealth and asset managers, banks, insurers and SIPP/SSAS consolidators on all regulatory aspects of these schemes, including TPR, FCA and HMRC compliance, regulatory investigations, and Ombudsman and court matters.

Jade is one of the UK's leading experts on M&A transactions in the pensions sector. She acts for a number of significant SIPP, SSAS and pension providers who are active consolidators of pension businesses. She has led or assisted with the sale of numerous pensions businesses, acting both buy-side and sell-side. Jade leads a cross-disciplinary team of lawyers in pensions, financial regulation, corporate finance, tax, litigation, real estate, commercial and data protection, amongst others.

Jade is also a director of Sovereign Trustees Ltd, the professional pension trustee of Addleshaw Goddard LLP.