LONDON--A ruling by the European Court of Justice could force private employers to pay additional pension benefits to former public-sector employees.

In the case, Beckmann vs. Dynamco Whicheloe MacFarlane Ltd., the European Court ruled that Katia Beckmann, a former employee of the U.K. National Health Service who was transferred to Dynamco when the unit she was working in was privatized, was entitled to enhanced pension benefits under the NHS occupational pension plan in effect when she was laid off by Dynamco.

Ms. Beckmann was transferred to Dynamco in 1995 and was laid off two years later, when she was over the age of 50. She claimed that, under U.K. regulations on the transfer of employee benefits, she was entitled to the immediate payment of enhanced benefits that would have been owed to her under the NHS pension plan.

The disputed benefits are paid to workers who are laid off over the age of 50. Such enhanced benefits are common in many public-sector pension plans in recognition of the difficulty workers over the age of 50 have in finding similar employment, sources say. But Dynamco refused to pay the enhanced benefit, and Ms. Beckmann took her case to an employment tribunal.

Dynamco argued that the U.K. regulations on pension plan transfer, the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981, excluded so-called "old-age" benefits. The regulations incorporate a European Union directive on the transfer of undertakings. The company claimed that the benefits Ms. Beckmann sought fell under the definition of an old-age benefit.

The Employment Tribunal ruled in favor of Dynamco, but last year the U.K. High Court referred the case to the European Court.

The European Court ruled that the benefits Ms. Beckmann sought were not old-age benefits as defined by the TUPE regulations, and that the obligation to pay them was transferred to Dynamco when Ms. Beckmann joined the company. The value of the benefits Ms. Beckmann is now set to receive was not disclosed.