Winspear v. Ontario (CEO of FSRA), 2022 ONFST 12 (CanLII)
July 25, 2022
A recent Financial Services Tribunal (FST) decision found no evidence that OMERS violated the terms of its plan or the Pension Benefits Act when it corrected an over-contribution error for a plan member.
The case involved a long-standing employee of the County of Oxford who worked as a paramedic for 31 years. For a period of two years, errors were made in calculating his eligible earnings, which resulted in an over-contribution to the plan fund.
OMERS corrected its records and the employer directly paid the employee member $321.06, accounting for the over-contribution error plus interest. , according to tribunal documents.
The member employee disagreed with how OMERS corrected the error, and made a complaint to the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) arguing that the amount of interest applied to the over-contribution was insufficient and that the over-contribution should have been transferred to his additional voluntary contribution account.
But the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) did not agree. It The CEO of FSRA disagreed and issued a Notice of Intended Decision (NOID), concluding that the member’s employee's allegations that the plan was not administrated in accordance with the Pension Benefits Act, its regulations or the terms of the plan were unfounded. In its decision the FST agreed with the CEO of FSRA.
