Law360 is providing free access to its coronavirus coverage to make sure all members of the legal community have accurate information in this time of uncertainty and change. Use the form below to sign up for any of our weekly newsletters. Signing up for any of our section newsletters will opt you in to the weekly Coronavirus briefing.
Sign up for our Financial Services UK newsletter
You must correct or enter the following before you can sign up:
Thank You!
Law360, London (June 3, 2020, 5:33 PM BST) -- The U.K. government's measures forcing international travelers to quarantine for two weeks after arriving in Britain will have a "major impact" on Britain's financial sector, the body that governs the country's financial center said Wednesday.
The City of London Corporation said that forcing financial services staff to self-isolate for 14 day after entering the U.K. will hurt sectors including financial and professional services companies based in the "Square Mile."
The Home Office has said that anyone entering the U.K. must isolate for two weeks or else face a £1,000 ($1,241) penalty. The rule, which will come into force on June 8, will apply to financial sector workers but freight workers, medical professionals and seasonal agricultural workers are exempted.
"The current quarantine proposals will have a major impact on a range of sectors, including the City's financial and professional services firms," Catherine McGuinness, policy chairwoman at the City of London Corporation, said on Wednesday. "It is difficult to understand why seasonal agricultural workers, truck drivers and athletes are being exempted from the rules but service sector staff are not. Restrictions which seem arbitrary rather than consistent undermine confidence and will hold us back."
Home Secretary Priti Patel announced the measure on May 22 in preparation for the number of travelers arriving in Britain increasing in the coming months. The government said it is aiming to manage the threat of imported cases of the virus, which could become a higher proportion of the overall number of infections in the U.K.
Arriving passengers will be required to fill out a form that provides contact and travel information and then self-isolate in their U.K. accommodation for 14 days. The government said that they must take private transport to their accommodation and not go to work or public areas and not have visitors.
Border Force, the law enforcement arm of the Home Office, will carry out spot checks to ensure that travelers are quarantining.
A breach of self-isolation is punishable by a £1,000 fixed penalty notice, which could rise if the risk of infection from abroad increases.
"This is another cross-government measure in our continued collective fight against the virus, to save lives and protect the British public by preventing a second wave of this disease," Patel said in an oral statement on Wednesday.
--Editing by Katherine Rautenberg.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
