Two of the scheme's members brought concerns about their pension payments to the attention of the trustee board, prompting an investigation into the way the payments were calculated.
According to a letter from Ray Runza, chair of trustees for the scheme, quoted in the Daily Mail, Honda is now considering legal action for potential "anomalies" in how the pension has been calculated. A further update from the chairman to members is due by the end of March.
Runza and Aon Consulting refused to comment. The situation has been described as a symptom of industry-wide discontent by senior advisers.
Kim Gubler of Kim Gubler Consulting, said such disputes usually arose out of problems around vague scheme rules, pensions increases, changes to pensionable salary or a combination of these.
"This is why the Pensions Regulator expects good internal controls, so trustees can ensure members get what they are entitled to," she concluded.
Allan Course, independent trustee for Capital Cranfield, said mistakes in pensions calculations were not uncommon.
"Regrettably, this sort of issue is more frequent than people would expect," he said. "Calculations can be awkward and trustees cannot take it for granted that even the big name administrators will do that correctly."
He added that good practice would be for trustees to ask their actuaries to show them the audit trail to explain how they carried out their calculations for a number of exercises, such as pension increases.
Privately, some of the industry experts PW spoke to questioned whether the issues with Honda's pension payments would have been noticed if the members had not complained. They also hinted that the fact Honda is considering legal redress suggests the alleged mistakes affect more than these two members.
A spokesman for Mercer said: "We are currently investigating this matter, which relates to a company we acquired in the 1990s, and our review is still at an early stage. We are therefore unable to provide comment at this time."
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