Tribunal, court and arbitration witness work.
Senior-led expert-witness engagement in pensions, insurance and financial services disputes. The firm acts on instruction of solicitors or counsel; for matters where direct counsel engagement is needed, the firm's Bar Standards Board licence permits it. Includes Single Joint Expert appointments, response to expert questions, and trial attendance.
Senior-led expert evidence under three concentric professional anchors.
The firm makes its pension experts available for expert-witness instruction. Appointments are made to named individuals who carry the duties to the court personally. Each named Expert acts under TAS 100 (FRC General Actuarial Standards), APS X3 (IFoA standard for actuaries as experts in legal proceedings), and the rules of the receiving court — CPR Part 35 civil, FPR Part 25 family, or equivalent for tribunal and arbitration. The Statement of Truth warranties compliance with all three. Fees are not linked to the outcome of the proceedings.
Institutional architecture supports the engagement: FCA authorisation (FRN 831289), Bar Standards Board licence for direct counsel engagement, PI cover through Pembroke Managing Agency Limited with Hamilton Syndicate 4000. The Fair Value Framework methodology, Congruent Quality Framework, and the platform’s calculation control IDs supply the technical apparatus the report rests on — the methodology layer is established by the firm’s wider practice, not invented for the instant case.
Five ways the firm is instructed.
Matter-type specialisms
- Matrimonial pension valuations — for routine SJE work, the productised Pension Sharing Order Solution is the right shape.
- Scheme-funding and sponsor disputes — section 75 debt valuations, sponsor-trustee disputes, contingent-asset valuation, scheme-restructuring challenges.
- Redress and mis-selling matters — methodology challenges in DB transfer claims, FOS appeals, group litigation. Symmetric DB/DC methodology supports redress defence at scale.
- Pension liability disputes — IAS 19 challenges, sponsor accounts disputes, longevity assumption disputes in M&A or sponsor restructuring.
- Insurance and reinsurance matters — actuarial reserving disputes, regulatory enforcement matters, contingent claims valuation.
Scoped through a first conversation.
Fixed-fee engagement
For well-defined scope: SJE appointments, party-instructed reports against an established matter, response to expert questions on a previously-prepared report. Fee agreed at scoping; engagement letter sets timing and named individuals on both sides.
Time-and-materials
For matters where scope evolves: counter-expert work where the opposing methodology disclosure is still developing, trial attendance where days are uncertain, complex disclosure-heavy matters. Rate agreed at scoping; the senior-led approach means the same partner runs the work throughout.
Statement of Work — how the fee is fixed
Engagements are scoped through a first conversation and then fixed in writing before any work begins. The firm’s Invitation Letter contains a Statement of Work fixing: the scope of the engagement, the timetable for delivery (key milestones and final-deliverable date), the price (with any stage payments scheduled against milestones), and the named individuals on both sides.
The scope-to-price conversion is based on the firm’s published charge-out rate: £350 per hour for engagements led by a Director or Senior Actuary (the only grades that lead engagements at Congruent). The Statement of Work converts scoped hours into a fixed fee — the buyer’s commercial commitment is to the fee in the Statement of Work, not to an open-ended hourly meter.
The firm tends to come in competitively on the fixed quote. Because Directors lead engagements directly — without the layered team structure typical of larger firms — scoped hours convert into a fixed fee that compares favourably against equivalent senior-led work elsewhere in the market.
Rate as at 1 January 2026, reviewed annually.
The methodological position on expert evidence.
For routine matrimonial SJE work, see Pension Sharing Order. For methodology defence in regulatory contexts, see Regulatory engagement and S166 engagement support.
Every expert-witness engagement begins with a scoping conversation.
If the matter requires actuarial or financial-economics expert input, the firm responds within one working day with whether it can take the instruction, what conflicts (if any) apply, and what it would need to scope the work. No pre-qualification questionnaire; the first call is the scoping discussion.