ExxonMobil has been ordered to make an additional payment to its Dutch pension fund after a Rotterdam court ruled in favour of the company’s works council in a dispute over pension indexation, according to Dutch newspaper FD.
The ruling concerns an agreement reached between ExxonMobil and its works council in 2005, under which the pensions of former employees are subject to a conditional indexation ambition of 90% of the derived consumer price index, capped at the general wage increase for active employees.
The agreement also provides for additional funding in exceptional circumstances.
A Rotterdam district court ruled in May that ExxonMobil had acted contrary to the agreement and its obligations as a good employer by failing to provide additional funding for pension indexation between 2021 and 2024. The court said the works council was entitled to bring the matter before it.
The dispute centred particularly on 2024, when retired and deferred members received no pension increase, while active employees received a 7% pay rise. Pension indexation had also fallen short of the 90% CPI ambition in previous years, according to the court document.
The court found that the additional funding provision was intended to address circumstances in which the standard indexation formula produced an undesirable outcome. ExxonMobil had, therefore, been required to consider using the mechanism, rather than simply declining to provide additional funding.
The pension fund’s own information shows that pensions for retired and deferred members were increased by 0% in 2021 and 2024, compared with 2.5% in 2022 and 6% in 2023.
The court’s May ruling did not establish an automatic entitlement to full compensation for the missed indexation. Instead, it gave the works council an opportunity to further specify its claims.
Yesterday’s judgment, reportedly published and then withdrawn, is understood to have ordered ExxonMobil to make a multi-million-euro additional payment to the pension fund. The withdrawn judgment was issued under ECLI:NL:RBROT:2026:11738.
IPE has contacted the respective legal parties and the Rotterdam court for a copy of the withdrawn judgment and clarification of the amount involved and whether a revised judgment will be published.
