Excerpt: A driver in Europe over recent years has been an attempt to create a single market in employee benefits, particularly pensions. The recent Pensions Directive (the 'IORPs Directive') and the applications of the draft new insurance directive ('Solvency II') has been part of a push to make a level playing field. The Directive grappled with a range of different pension plan structures (UK trust-based plans, Dutch wholly insured plans, German self-funded plans and French government underwritten plans, to name a few) with a view to allowing Belgian employers to employ German employees through an Irish trust based plan, if that is what is wanted.  MORE >>