Mis-selling losers can still claim refund

David Cresswell, a spokesman for the Ombudsman, rejected claims by City solicitor Reynolds Porter Chamberlain that a case it had brought would finally end the personal pension scandal.

Millions of investors wrongly sold personal pensions in the Nineties were originally given until March 2000 to complain. However, the Ombudsman is still dealing with 100 unusual cases a year, where savers never received notification of the deadline, for example, or where particularly untypical issues applied.

Reynolds Porter Chamberlain has won an appeal against an Ombudsman decision that a pension mis-selling complaint could be heard under standard financial services industry rules, rather than through the review of pension mis-selling. "This is a significant victory for the industry," a spokesman said. "More than 10 years after the Pensions Review started, the decision in this case finally marks the long-awaited end to pension mis-selling compensation."

But Cresswell said: "This is an extrapolation from one case - there is no landmark decision because each case is considered on its own merits."