Riot Compensation Act 2016 (United Kingdom)

The Riot Compensation Act 2016 makes the local police pay for damage caused by a riot, in place of the Riot (Damages) Act 1886. The Victorian statute had slept for a century, then August 2011 woke it up with several thousand claims. It made the police of the area pay, without fault, for property destroyed by persons "riotously and tumultuously assembled." Its flaws showed quickly: a fourteen-day notice period, extended in a hurry, and a murky procedure. Then came business interruption, a question the Supreme Court decided against insurers on April 20, 2016, in the case of the Sony warehouse in Enfield. The new Act, in force since April 6, 2017, keeps the principle. The local policing body pays for property damage caused by a riot as defined by the Public Order Act 1986. That body is the elected police and crime commissioner, or MOPAC (Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime) in London. A riot there means at least twelve people using or threatening violence for a common purpose. The cap is one million pounds per claim. Business interruption stays excluded, with a narrow exception for alternative accommodation. Insurers may claim under the Act, and it is their main recovery route after an English riot. For the property underwriter, the cap changes the math: on a fifty million pound warehouse, the state repays one fiftieth at best. The Act applies only to England and Wales, while Scotland and Northern Ireland keep their own regimes.