Comments:  March 2010: Cadbury’s defined benefit (DB) scheme will be closed to new employees and a new defined contribution (DC) scheme will be offered instead if proposals from Kraft Foods are accepted. A 90-day consultation period over the proposal, slated to end on 19 March, is currently in progress. The changes will be phased in gradually over a period of time.  6 March 2010 The 30,000 members of Cadbury's final salary pension scheme could find themselves shunted out under secret proposals being worked on by new American owner Kraft. Cadbury said a review of the scheme, which is expected to conclude by the end of this month, is likely to propose shutting the scheme to further contributions for existing members, as well as to new members. Existing employees would be moved onto a less generous retirement plan for future accruals. Axing the pension scheme would be the latest blow to hit Cadbury's 45,000 workers in the four weeks since the American processed cheese-maker took control of the chocolate group in a controversial £ 11.9bn deal. April 2010 More than 3,000 Cadbury employees face a three-year pay freeze unless they opt out of the confectioner's final salary pension scheme. New owners Kraft Foods, the US food group, has told 3,600 staff that they must accept a pay cap after it discovered an obscure clause in Cadbury's pension trust deed that makes it almost impossible to close the scheme. Kraft did not know about the clause, which is at least 30 years old, until after it acquired Cadbury for £11.6bn ($17.6bn). A person with knowledge of the Cadbury pension fund said he did not know why such an unusual clause existed, but it could be linked to Cadbury's Quaker heritage and its doctrine of giving a fair deal to staff and suppliers. Kraft is forcing Cadbury employees to accept a pay freeze because it believes that this is the only way it will be able to get its future retirement costs under control.

Comments:  The company went into liquidation in 2001.  The company was sold for a nominal sum to Emery Colours Ltd who are a subsidiary of Tennents International. The employees were transferred to the new company on the same contracts but the new company would not take over the pension liability. 

March 2006 Members voted on a 'career average' pension to replace the final salary one from 1 April 2006. (Well over a third of those affected did not bother to vote).

The unlisted company, founded in 1840, said in early January it proposed to move staff from its final-salary schemes to a career-average salary, angering unions.

When Akzo Nobel acquired Courtaulds in 1998, it stressed that the existing scheme would be supported for a further 10 years.

The company was demerged into a separate wholly owned business called Acordis in 1999. This was subsequently sold to CVC Capital Partners, which holds 64 per cent, with Akzo Nobel retaining 21 per cent and the Acordis senior management owning 15 per cent.

The scheme members remained in the Akzo Nobel (CPS) pension scheme until June 4 2003, when the workforce was told that four units were to be placed into a holding company called Corsadi. Ian Hawley, a Transport & General Workers Union works convener and a member of the scheme, said: "Akzo says the cost of meeting its pensions obligations is too expensive, but this would only be true if the scheme were to be wound up. The scheme is in surplus and the company has taken a pensions holiday [made no contributions] for almost 14 years."

Many of those affected work at Corsadi-owned Acetate Products in Spondon and Little Heath, near Coventry.

Feb 2006: Workers in the Corus scheme will have to pay in more and the option of retiring five years early after 35 years' service with the company will be removed - though not for those with existing entitlements.

Employees' contributions will go up from 5% to 6%. Corus believes the changes will cut its pension costs by 20%. The £8bn scheme is in surplus but the company said it is taking this action now to 'counter long-term challenges'.

February 2006: The company has agreed to end its pensions contributions holiday from April, while employee contributions will increase from five per cent of salary to six per cent.

The final salary scheme will be retained, although a working group has been set up to review arrangements for new entrants over the next year.

August 2009:  Corus is to rule out new entrants to the British Steel Pension Scheme from 21 September 2009.