REUTERS | Darren Staples
November 3, 2021

Third time’s a charm: can a single dispute include multiple sub-issues in adjudication?

“Quick and dirty” is not a phrase that we usually associate with dispute resolution. However, as many construction practitioners will know, adjudication provides an exception.

Speed has its benefits but it rarely makes things simple. As our colleague, Ravinder, explained in her blog, adjudication is not always a straightforward process. Many disputes involve multiple, complex issues. This creates fertile ground for challenge, and adjudicators find themselves engaged with jurisdictional arguments more often than not.

One such argument is whether the issues referred to adjudication comprise one or multiple disputes. Our blog focuses on the courts’ approach to this question in the recent case of Quadro Services Ltd v Creagh Concrete Products Ltd. Continue reading →

REUTERS | Sigtryggur Johannsson
November 2, 2021

Adjudication: playing the best game in town

Of the 25 years since the introduction of adjudication, 20 have followed the Court of Appeal drawing attention to the tension between adjudication and insolvency in Bouygues (UK) Ltd v Dahl-Jensen (UK) Ltd.

The most recent major decision dealing with insolvency and adjudication is John Doyle Contractors Ltd v Erith Contractors Ltd. In their blog post, Edward Shaw and Hadley Dickson provided a summary of the Court of Appeal’s decision and considered its potential implications, in particular for liquidators and funders deciding whether to adjudicate certain claims.

Mark has previously written about how insolvency-adjudication cases have shown the continued significance of the rules of maintenance and champerty, and the effect of common third party funding driving forward the Bresco, Meadowside and Astec series of cases. In this blog post, we will be looking at the conspicuous success of adjudication as a process, which was lauded by the Supreme Court in Bresco and the Court of Appeal in John Doyle (among others), and how this might be expanded into dispute resolution more generally. Continue reading →

REUTERS | Peter Cziborra
November 1, 2021

“O, where is loyalty?” The duties of experts and conflicts of interest

In modern litigation, experts often simultaneously perform a number of different and apparently contradictory functions: they may receive confidential information from their client that they are not at liberty to disclose; they may prepare draft reports that will usually be privileged in the hands of their client, and may see other privileged documents during the production of such drafts; yet their overriding duty is to the court and they are required by CPR 35.3 to sign a statement to that effect in their report.

How are experts and the parties who appoint them to reconcile these contradictory functions? When will conflicts of interest arise and how can they be avoided? The courts have recently shed some light on these questions. Continue reading →

REUTERS | David Mdzinarishvili
October 26, 2021

Is the ICC’s expedited arbitration procedure an international alternative to adjudication?

International arbitration is the dispute resolution forum of choice for most international contracts, in particular in the construction and energy sectors.

Arbitration can be procedurally slow and disproportionately expensive for some disputes. It does not enable parties to resolve their disputes as quickly and efficiently as other mechanisms, most notably adjudication, which is available in the UK and a number of other common law countries. This is a problem for construction parties, especially as the speedy resolution of disputes and release of cash plays an important role in smooth project delivery.

In March 2017, the ICC launched its expedited procedure provisions (EPP). This aims to shorten the length of arbitration proceedings. Certain other arbitration institutions have similar procedures. The EPP quickly gained popularity and, in 2020, the ICC reported a significant increase in its use. This is set to continue with an expanded second iteration of the EPP, which launched with the introduction of the ICC’s Arbitration Rules 2021 with effect from 1 January 2021.

This post analyses the role the EPP could play in helping parties to international construction contracts resolve their disputes more efficiently. Firstly drawing comparisons to the widely accepted and successful statutory adjudication regime in England, Wales and Scotland, it will then refer to other contractual alternatives such as expert determination and dispute adjudication and avoidance boards. Continue reading →

REUTERS | Clodagh Kilcoyne
October 26, 2021

TCC makes interesting findings relevant to Final Statement dispute

I’ve just been looking back over our past blogs and neither Matt nor I have written about an English adjudication enforcement case since May. That’s in part been because there weren’t many reported adjudication enforcement judgment on BAILII over the summer, but that changed in September with publication of judgments in Downs Road Development LLP v Laxmanbhai Construction (UK) Ltd and CC Construction Ltd v Mincione, both judgments of HHJ Eyre QC. There are lots of similarities between them as both are about an adjudicator’s jurisdiction, breach of the rules of natural justice and severance. Theresa Joo has already written an excellent blog on the former case, and so I thought I would plump for the latter.

CC Construction Ltd v Mincione is one of those cases where, not only were the parties in dispute, they also had the added stress of it concerning conclusivity issues with a JCT Final Statement. Continue reading →

REUTERS | Alexander Kuznetsov
October 20, 2021

Payment notices: what genuine belief is needed to make a payment notice valid?

The genuine article? Does a valid payment notice need to set out the sum the payer genuinely considers due?

The requirement that a valid payment notice must set out “the sum the payer considers due” is often at the centre of payment disputes. The recent decision in Downs Road Development LLP v Laxmanbhai Construction (UK) Ltd, provides a necessary clarification around what this actually means, confirming that a valid payment notice must set out the sum the payer genuinely considers due.

In addition, the court refused to enforce the adjudicator’s decision, because the failure to consider a cross claim was a breach of the rules of natural justice and the decision could not be severed. Continue reading →

REUTERS | Eric Vidal
October 12, 2021

Can’t simply “read across” UK case law into Irish adjudication enforcement

Those of you who’ve been following this blog will be aware that I’ve written about adjudication in Ireland multiple times, and had been waiting for what I’d call a “proper” enforcement judgment to discuss. That arrived in the summer with the judgment in Principal Construction Ltd v Beneavin Contractors Ltd. We now have another one, this time in the form of Garrett Simons J’s judgment in Aakon Construction Services Ltd v Pure Fitout Associated Ltd, which was handed down last month. He is the judge nominated in Practice Direction HC 105 to deal with High Court adjudication enforcement applications (something else I discussed earlier this year).

The opening couple of paragraphs of the judgment refer to some very familiar terminology, like the fact that it was a statute (this time, the Construction Contracts Act 2013 (CCA 2013)) that introduced a statutory scheme whereby disputes under construction contracts could be referred to adjudication; that adjudicators’ decisions are provisionally binding on the parties; and that they will be enforced summarily.

It is all part of the “pay now, argue later” approach that we’ve known for the last 20-odd years. The only real difference in Ireland is that it is only payment disputes that can be referred to adjudication, and their payment rules are quite different from ours. Also, the CCA 2013 makes express provision for the enforcement of an adjudicator’s decision with the leave of the court “in the same manner as a judgment or order of the High Court”. If leave is given, judgment is entered “in the terms of the adjudicator’s decision”. We all know that in England and Wales, the TCC had to develop the enforcement procedure that we are all familiar with.

It comes as no surprise that the paying party raised jurisdictional and natural justice arguments to defend its position (a third ground related to impartiality was “sensibly” withdrawn). Perhaps it is also no surprise that the court rejected these grounds and enforced the adjudicator’s decision. However, I’m getting ahead of myself and need to tell you how the court arrived at that conclusion. Continue reading →

REUTERS | Baz Ratner
October 7, 2021

Going for broke: Court of Appeal decides on insolvent party enforcement of adjudication awards

The Court of Appeal has handed down judgment in John Doyle Contractors Ltd v Erith Contractors Ltd. It is one of the first cases following the Supreme Court’s decision in Bresco Electrical Services Ltd v Michael J Lonsdale (Electrical) Ltd to test the courts’ willingness to allow insolvent parties to enforce adjudicators’ awards.

The Court of Appeal has affirmed that an insolvent company will not be entitled to enforcement of an adjudicator’s award by way of summary judgment where there is a potential set-off by way of cross-claim that has not been finally determined. Further, adjudication of those claims and cross-claims will not amount to a final determination such as to allow enforcement. Continue reading →

REUTERS | Mike Hutchings
October 6, 2021

Hobson’s choice, the latest on economic duress

“I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse”, was Vito Corleone’s favourite negotiating tactic. While his methods are a far cry from how things are done in the construction industry, commercial pressure can be used to force a party to accept an unfavourable deal. When does such behaviour cross the line and become illegitimate pressure or duress? Is it where a party, possibly a monopoly, tells the other it will never deal with it again unless it gives up all its claims? That is the situation that the Supreme Court looked at recently but it is worth looking at how this works in a construction context. Continue reading →

REUTERS | Kai Pfaffenbach
September 22, 2021

Arbitrators escape the red card in Manchester City case

What, I hear you ask, am I doing writing about football? Well, despite the title of this blog, it’s actually about an arbitration and subsequent court proceedings that just happen to involve a football club. I think it’s interesting for a number of reasons, not least because it applies the Supreme Court’s findings in Halliburton Company v Chubb Bermuda Insurance Ltd, which I blogged about last year.  Continue reading →