Unique | JP Morgan doubles down on refusal to pay widow's pension

The Grinches at JPMorgan doubled down on their refusal to pay out a pension to the widow of a former worker who has been battling the monetary large for the cash for greater than a decade, the Publish has realized.

Elaine Silverberg, 73, has been begging the Jamie Dimon-led financial institution at hand over her husband Mel’s $331-a-week pension pot in a spat over lacking documentation for 13 years, as The Publish solely reported final month.

However America’s largest lender has repeatedly denied her declare – and dug in its heels but once more this vacation season, a supply instructed The Publish on Friday.

An insider on the international banking powerhouse, whose earnings surpassed $12 billion within the third quarter of this 12 months amid a surge in funding banking charges, mentioned there was “no change” to its Scrooge-like stance that Silverberg will not be entitled to a cent.

Sources on the Wall Road titan insisted the financial institution had carried out “a full and truthful evaluation” of her case “a number of occasions.”

Silverberg’s husband, Mel, died unexpectedly of a number of organ failure on the age of 43 in 1988.

He had labored for a decade as a techniques analyst at Chase Manhattan Financial institution till 1979.

Chase Manhattan went on to merge with JPMorgan in 2000.

JPMorgan Chase acknowledges that her husband earned a vested retirement bundle earlier than leaving the financial institution.

However the financial institution additionally mentioned that didn’t fill out a kind that elected her to learn from his pension upon his demise.

The Ronald Reagan administration handed the Retirement Fairness Act in 1984 so spouses like Elaine would robotically profit if their family members died.

“Primarily based on a regulation change after he left the agency, he may have made an election for a survivor profit. The agency has no file of him making that election,” the JPMorgan insider mentioned.

Mel’s absolutely vested money pile is at the moment price an estimated $53,000, Silverberg mentioned.

“I can’t discover a lawyer who will need to sue JPMorgan Chase for the sum of money that this case would generate for them,” she mentioned. “I simply must hope for his or her goodwill within the spirit of the season.”

A JPMorgan spokesman declined to remark.

Silverberg, who was simply 37 on the time of Mel’s demise and raised their three children alone, mentioned that the worldwide banking powerhouse gave her the chilly shoulder after the Publish’s story final month.

“I’m very upset that nobody replied in any manner. Nobody bought again to me, nobody supplied any type of an evidence. It has been deafening silence,” the retired authorities administrator defined.

“I at all times thought that if Jamie Dimon came upon about this he would need to do the appropriate factor and honor the pension,” she added, referring to the 68-year-old Queens native who has been CEO of JP Morgan since 2006 and raked in $36 million final 12 months. 

The grandmother of eight described how Mel would volunteer to work nights and weekends whereas she took care of their younger household.

“He was a staff participant after they wanted him. He was at all times there for them, she mentioned.

The financial institution claims it wrote to Mel on three separate events after he had stepped down, however Elaine says none of that correspondence ever arrived on the household dwelling.

She mentioned pension managers can solely dig up documentation that they are saying proves they contacted Mel in 1990 — two years after he died.

“They by no means furnished any proof that that they had tried to achieve him thrice,” she instructed the Publish.

Silverberg, who as soon as enlisted New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and ex-Bronx Rep. Eliot Engel to struggle in her nook, urged the Wall Road large to again down forward of the forthcoming vacation season.

“It’s the time of the 12 months that corporations are very beneficiant to their workers and their employees and their higher-ups, and perhaps they’ll resolve that that is the time to do the appropriate factor,” she mentioned. “They’re punishing my household primarily based on the technicality that they created.”