#’?# H?me Court of Canada has denied ING Canada Inc.’s effort to appeal the Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision in its pension plan dispute with Transamerica Life Canada and Transamerica parent Aegon Canada Inc.

On Thursday, the highest court in the land dismissed ING’s application with costs to Aegon and Transamerica.

The case concerns the status of a pension fund organized for ING subsidiary, NN Life insurance Co. Aegon and Transamerica alleged that NN improperly took contribution holidays in its pension fund after merging the plan with that of Halifax Life Insurance Co. of Canada, which was acquired in 1989. The Halifax plan was in surplus when the firm was acquired and that surplus was used to fund the NN Life plan after the two firms were merged. Aegon says this violated a 1969 trust agreement which calls for the pension plan’s assets to be used only for the benefit of plan members.

ING argued that the Pension Commission of Ontario (forerunner of the Financial Services Commission of Ontario) allowed it to merge the pension funds in 1994, but required it to track assets separately. It maintained it properly merged and kept separate records of the two pension plans.

However, the lower court agreed with Aegon, finding the assets of the Halifax plan cannot be used to offset pension obligations to other employees. On this basis, it found ING breached its warranty to Aegon concerning the funding status of the NN plan. And an appeal court backed up its judgment last December.

With the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Court of Appeal’s decision is now final. FSCO says that it is reviewing the implications of this development.