Bank of Valletta employees seek millions in damages for unpaid pension top-ups

A number of Bank of Valletta employees have sued the bank for pension funds which they say were arbitrarily and discriminatorily distributed to other employees, in a lawsuit whose claims for damages could reach €20 million.

Some 90 employees, mostly retired, are calling on the bank to disburse a special pension that was stopped in the mid-1970s after top brass had decided on two separate occasions to top up two retiring employees’ pensions.

The group of workers, most of whom have since retired, had been employed between July 1976 and May 1977 and had contributed towards the Consolidated Staff and Widows and Orphans Pension Fund, a fund intended to provide a two-thirds pension to the staff upon retirement.

The ‘top-up’ pension, which was added to the normal state pension, was discontinued that same year. The employees were informed that they no longer needed to contribute to the fund, but the bank would contribute instead until the fund was liquidated in 1990.

But it emerged over the years that the bank had accorded the special top-up to two employees who retired in the mid-1990s and early 2000s – even though they were not entitled to it – by the bank’s top brass at the time. The information had been confirmed under oath by top bank officials in a first tribunal hearing instituted way back in 2005.

The General Workers Union is now representing the workers in a second lawsuit they have instituted against the bank, arguing that the benefits of the pension scheme should be applied uniformly across the board and not arbitrarily and discriminatorily. Proceedings against the bank in the Industrial Tribunal had not determined the issue the first time around.

The applicants had asked the Tribunal to declare the bank as having applied the Consolidated Staff and Widows and Orphans Pension Fund in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner and liquidate the benefits and arrears thereof in favour of the applicants.

MaltaToday is informed that the claim exceeds €20 million over a period of 25 years in pension top-ups.