14 Employee benefit liabilities

The overall employee benefits situation at the Corporation is as follows:

Employer contribution reserves

The employer contribution reserves in the amount of CHF 1 million from the previous year were used entirely in the year under review for the transfer of the employees of Liechti Engineering AG, Langnau (Switzerland), to the Pension Fund GF Machining Solutions. In the previous year, the employer contribution reserves were recorded as non-current assets under “Other financial assets”.

Economic benefit/economic obligation and pension benefit expenses

The table below shows the economic benefit and the economic obligation at the end of the year under review and for the previous year, as well as the development of pension benefit expenses:

		2016	2015				2016	2015
CHF million	Surplus/ deficit according to FER 26	Economic part of the Corporation	Economic part of the Corporation	Translation differences	Change to prior-year period or recognised in the current result of the period, respectively	Contri- butions concering the business period	Pension benefit expenses within personnel expenses	Pension benefit expenses within personnel expenses

Patronage funds	11					1	1	1
Employee benefit plans w/o surplus/deficit						12	12	19
Employee benefit plans with surplus	5					9	9
Employee benefit plans with deficit	–25	–20	–19	–2	3	1	4	1
Employee benefit plans without own assets		–99	–101	–1	–1	2	1	3
Loans from pension fund institutions		–29	–27
Total	–9	–148	–147	–3	2	25	27	24

The employee benefit plans with a deficit in the amount of CHF 25 million (previous year: CHF 18 million) relate to the defined benefit plans in the UK and the USA. The amount of the deficit depends largely on the value of the securities and on the discount rate applied to determine the pension obligations. The entire economic obligation covering the outflow of funds anticipated in the medium term corresponds to the reported deficit and amounts to CHF 20 million (previous year: CHF 19 million). The economic obligation for employee benefit plans without own assets, i.e. unfunded plans, as recognized in the balance sheet, amounts to CHF 99 million (previous year: CHF 101 million) and relates mainly to employee benefit plans in Germany. The loans from pension fund institutions in the amount of CHF 29 million (previous year: CHF 27 million) are from pension fund institutions in Germany that have invested their funds in Corporate Companies.

The table below summarizes the pension benefit expenses in the year under review and for the previous year:

CHF million	2016	2015

Contributions to employee benefit plans from Corporate Companies	24	23
Contributions to employee benefit plans from employer contribution reserves	1
Total contributions	25	23
+/- Change in ECR from asset developments, value adjustments, etc.
Contributions and change in employer contribution reserves	25	23

Decrease/increase in economic benefit of the Corporation from surplus
Increase/decrease in economic obligation of the Corporation from deficit
Increase/decrease in economic obligation of the Corporation (employee benefit plans without own assets)	2	1
Total change in economic effect of surplus/deficit	2	1
Pension benefit expenses within personnel expenses in the period under review	27	24

The change in the economic obligation from employee benefit plans and the employer contributions paid for the year under review, as recognized in the balance sheet, amount to CHF 27 million (previous year: CHF 24 million) and are included in the “Personnel expenses”.