Adjudication Cases

An interesting case concerning the Adjudicator’s ability to recover his fees, the judge stated that the case raised some interesting points as to the circumstances in which an Adjudicator’s fees are or are not payable.

The case concerned a matter which was referred under the CIC LVD MAP, avoiding acronyms that’s the Construction Industry Council Low Value Dispute Model Adjudication Procedure, in short, it’s a low value fixed fee adjudication to help provide certainty to the parties when resolving a dispute. In this instance the claim was for £35,975.29 and the Adjudicator’s Fee was fixed at £6,000.00.

Delta sought summary judgement of an adjudicator's decision.

Watkin Jones successfully argued that the adjudicator did not have jurisdiction as Delta had referred multiple disputes under two separate subcontracts to the adjudicator in the same adjudication. 

The Court held that an adjudicator’s decision remained a decision notwithstanding that one party challenged its validity and could therefore be enforced.  The Court provided that summary judgment would be the normal way to enforce an adjudicator’s decision. Adjudication was here to stay.

In a decision dated 8 February 2022, an adjudicator decided that Advance did not issue a valid pay less notice. Advance attempted to rely on a later payment notice. Advance was to pay Enisca the sum of £2.7million. The matter was referred to the TCC under Part 8 Proceedings.  It was decided that the reasonable recipient would have taken the later certificate not to apply to the payment in question and the decision was enforced by the court.

The decision of O'Farrell J in Essential Living (Greenwich) Limited v Elements (Europe) Limited [2022] EWHC 1400 considers the effect of an interim application adjudication decision on the parties' ongoing final account dispute.