Richard Desmond’s Express Newspapers is at loggerheads with Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay’s Telegraph Media Group in a dispute over the funding of the pension scheme for their Docklands printing joint venture West Ferry Printers.

The Express group says that £66 million is needed to make good a deficit in the pension scheme, but that Telegraph Media Group has refused to contribute half of that to make up the shortfall. As a result, no payment has been made into the fund.

Robert Sanderson, finance director of Express Newspapers, went public on the dispute yesterday, telling a meeting of pensioners that they and the pension trustees had rejected as “wholly insufficient” an unspecified counter offer by Telegraph Media Group.

Mr Sanderson said that Express had “repeatedly urged” the Pension Regulator to take firm action and issue financial support directives against both parties, which would force each to resolve the issue. The regulator confirmed that it has been investigating the issue since July but had yet to conclude what to do.

Telegraph sources said that the company would meet its obligations to the scheme. The company is thought to have offered £8 million. The pension plan at issue, a closed final-salary scheme, has 1,900 members, and dates from the setting up of the Telegraph-Express printing joint venture in 1987.

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