By all accounts arbitration is enjoying a bit of a resurgence. Rising court fees and increasing costs management in the TCC, as well as an increasing number of international contractors working in the UK, appears to be leading to more and more parties choosing arbitration, rather than litigation, in their contracts.

However, even though parties enter into arbitration agreements, on occasion they try to avoid them, and that’s what happened in the case I want to talk about this week: Philpott and another v Lycee Francais Charles De Gaulle School. It’s actually a Chancery case heard in Birmingham by HHJ Purle QC, and concerned a claim by a contractor in a creditors voluntary arrangement (CVA). Continue reading →

I have looked at the binding nature of adjudicators’ decisions previously. For example, I have considered how one adjudicator is bound by another adjudicator’s earlier decision and also looked at the concept of temporary finality. On both occasions, the focus was on section 108(3) of the Construction Act 1996 and paragraph 23(2) of the Scheme for Construction Contracts 1998.

Therefore it was interesting to read HHJ Stephen Davies QC’s judgment in Khurana and Khurana v Weber Construction Ltd, where the focus had shifted away from the statutory nature of adjudication and was firmly on contractual issues. Continue reading →

Let’s be honest about it, Matt and I have been slightly spoilt over the past few months when it comes to adjudication enforcement cases to blog about. There has been a plethora of interesting cases streaming out of the TCC, and the latest instalment from Coulson J is CSK Electrical v Kingswood Electrical. Continue reading →

Life as an adjudicator can be hard sometimes, what with all the jurisdictional challenges flying around. Questions about who we know, who we don’t know, who we’ve spoken to (or not) and who’ve we’ve done business with over the last few years. However, one thing you might think was a sure-fired bet was your appointment and the rules governing that appointment. However, as HHJ Havelock-Allan QC’s judgment in Ecovision Systems Ltd v Vinci Construction UK Ltd demonstrates, not even that is guaranteed. Continue reading →

By now many of you will have read the most recent instalment in the battle between Gary Paice and Kim Springall (property developers), and MJ Harding (building contractor). In Paice and another v MJ Harding, Coulson J concluded that a fair-minded observer would consider that there was a real possibility that the adjudicator, Mr Sliwinski, was biased as a result of his failure to disclose conversations with one of the parties, his misleading answers to emails when asked about those conversations and the tone and content of his explanations and witness statements in the associated enforcement proceedings.

Much has already been written about Coulson J’s conclusions and Richard Sage’s blog is thought provoking. However, rather than give you my views on the apparent bias point, I want to look at two other issues:

• Coulson J’s conclusion that there was a substantial overlap between the adjudication Mr Sliwinski decided and a previous adjudication decided by Mr Linnett, such that Mr Sliwinski did not have jurisdiction.
• Coulson J’s statement that, “Everyone in the construction industry knows that contractor’s claims are usually overstated”.

Continue reading →