A rescue plan designed to secure the future of crisis hit mutual Equitable Life was given the legal all-clear on Friday - opening the way for a £250m sterling injection from Halifax.
London's High Court sanctioned a compromise scheme of arrangement which won the approval of 98% of with-profits policyholders at meetings held last month.
Halifax, now part of the HBOS group, bought the mutual society's assets for £500m last year and offered to inject £250m if a compromise deal was in place by March 1.
Mr Justice Lloyd said today that, despite objections from 30 dissenters, he was satisfied the scheme was one of which an 'intelligent and honest man', acting in his own interests, might reasonably approve.
Under the scheme, holders of Guaranteed Annuity Rate policies (GARs) were asked to give up their guaranteed pension rates in return for a 17.5% increase in the value of their policies.
The 240-year-old society's problems came to a head when it lost the final round of a legal dispute over the rights of its GAR policyholders, whose guaranteed rates became too expensive to honour when interest rates and inflation fell.
