A top legal firm was accused yesterday of using emotional blackmail to influence a lawyer’s career choices during a landmark £4.5 million legal claim.

Peter Bloxham, the former head of insolvency at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, told an employment tribunal that he was put under “emotional pressure” to retire as a partner and accept a smaller pension but also continue working for the elite City firm in the lesser role of consultant.

Mr Bloxham, who now works as a policyholder advocate for the insurance group Prudential, described how he was called to a meeting with another Freshfields partner.

After prompting from the tribunal chairman, Mr Bloxham said that the former colleague used the meeting to ask him to “put aside my concerns and to concentrate on the interests of the firm and its clients”.

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The claims were made during the second day of a hearing in which Mr Bloxham, 55, has accused his former partners of age discrimination.

He alleges that significant changes to the firm’s pension system forced him to retire early. He said the changes, which would have led to his pension being cut by 20 per cent if he did not agree to retire, were unlawful because they affected people differently according to their age.

Freshfields insists the changes were “a proportionate means of meeting a legitimate aim” and therefore not discriminatory.

In cross-examination, Dinah Rose, QC, for Freshfields, suggested to Mr Bloxham that his claim, understood to be for £4.5 million, was about money rather than discrimination.

“The amount [of a pension pot to be split among multiple partners] is finite,” she told Mr Bloxham, “like a share of pie for each partner. This case is about how much pie you get, isn’t it?” Ms Rose continued.

Mr Bloxham replied that the size of his pension pot was a “consequence” but not the chief aspect of his case.

Later Mr Bloxham told the tribunal that certain high-performing partners were considered “super heroes” and were offered extremely lucrative deals to retire from the partnership but remain as consultants.

In his witness statement Mr Bloxham said he did not recall ever having being referred to as a “super hero”, although he maintained he had built a successful practice that included advising on the first wave of leveraged buy-outs in the 1980s.

Ms Rose and Mr Bloxham clashed repeatedly over the issue of whether Mr Bloxham chose to retire, or was forced, as he claims.

Mr Bloxham told the tribunal that changes to his pension were so severe it would have been “economic madness” to have remained as a partner.

But Ms Rose forced Mr Bloxham to concede the pension changes were approved by an overwhelming majority of Freshfields partners when it was put to a vote on March 29 last year.

Of the 511 partners at the time, 400 voted in favour of the pension changes, more than the two-thirds majority needed under the firm’s constitution to push through the change, Ms Rose added.

Until the changes were enacted, Freshfields was an anomaly among City law firms because retired partners’ pensions were funded by the firm’s active partners.

In explaining how this worked, Ms Rose pushed Mr Bloxham to concede he had never actually contributed any money to his pension. She also reminded him that as long as 10 years ago the firm warned partners that its generous pension scheme could not be guaranteed indefinitely and had advised making private provisions.

Mr Bloxham told the tribunal he resisted offers from “numerous headhunters” during his time at Freshfields because he thought it unlikely any other firm would compensate him for the pension rights he had earned.

Mr Bloxham also accused the firm of rushing through pension changes without appropriate consultation.

In response to this claim, that Freshfields also disputes, the tribunal heard about a group of senior partners formed to compose alternative proposals to solve the pensions issue.

The hearing continues.

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