Hong Kong says it let JPMorgan CEO skip quarantine for low-risk trip

by Monique Beals - 11/16/21 2:31 PM ET

Hong Kong allowed JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon to skip the city’s required COVID-19 quarantine, saying the bank’s size and importance justified the exemption.

“The justification is related to economy, as this is a very huge bank with key business in Hong Kong,” Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said on Tuesday, according to Bloomberg. “He needs to come to Hong Kong for work for about a day.”

Lam added that the CEO’s trip was “restricted.”

“The risk is totally manageable,” she said, per Bloomberg.

Dimon received an individual exemption from the city government’s quarantine rules, but he noted on Monday that Hong Kong’s travel restrictions “make it harder” for his bank to retain talent in the worldwide financial center, according to Bloomberg.

“Jamie went to Hong Kong to thank our 4,000+ people in the region and to see regulators. He followed all rules and protocols related to the exemption for the short trip,” a JPMorgan spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill.

In August, the government separately granted an exemption to actress Nicole Kidman to film a TV series.

“The case in discussion has been granted permission to travel to Hong Kong with a quarantine exemption for the purpose of performing designated professional work, taking into account that it is conducive to maintaining the necessary operation and development of Hong Kong’s economy,” government officials wrote in a statement at the time.

Hong Kong has imposed some of the most strict COVID-related travel restrictions in the world, requiring individuals from high-risk countries to complete a 21-day quarantine in a hotel regardless of their vaccination status.

Bloomberg also noted that Hong Kong has not had any locally transmitted COVID-19 cases in months and has only had just over 200 virus-related deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Nearly 70 percent of Hong Kong’s population has received at least one vaccine dose, according to the government’s COVID-19 dashboard.

–Updated at 3:14 p.m.