Cases - Holt Insulation Ltd v Colt International Ltd
Record details
- Name
- Holt Insulation Ltd v Colt International Ltd
- Date
- [2001]
- Citation
- Adj.L.R 02.01
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Construction contracts - adjudication - adjudicator's jurisdiction - substantially same dispute -enforcement - second adjudication - whether substantially the same dispute had been referred to a second adjudication - whether the adjudicator should resign - The Scheme for Construction Contracts (England and Wales) Regulations 1998
- Summary
-
This action arose out of 2 adjudication proceedings in relation to an interim application for payment (interim application number 10). In the first adjudication, Colt had claimed in the referral the sum of £110,587.56 plus interest. In that adjudication Holt had asserted and the adjudicator had agreed that his jurisdiction was limited to deciding whether or not that sum was due and therefore he did not have power to venture into deciding matters of alternative valuation. He concluded that the sum claimed was not due.
In the second adjudication Colt slightly amended its figures and claimed the sum of £97,309.77 or alternatively such other sum or sums as the adjudicator shall decide to be fair and reasonable in the circumstance plus interest.
Colt were successful in the second adjudication, the adjudicator deciding that the Holt were liable to pay £72,939.56, which Colt sought to enforce by way of commencement of insolvency proceedings. During the course of defending those insolvency proceedings Holt brought this application for a declaration that the second adjudication was invalid as it related to substantially the same dispute as the first adjudication.
The adjudications were being run pursuant to the Scheme for Construction Contracts, which provides that the adjudicator must resign where the dispute is the same or substantially the same as one which had previously been referred to adjudication and a decision has been taken in that adjudication.
The judge concluded that while the references to the adjudicator may have related to the same matters arising out of contractual relations between the parties they did not relate to the same dispute. There was nothing similar in the disputes; they were about different things. They may have been about the entitlement to claim in respect of the same work but the notices of referral were crucially different and in the judge's view the adjudicator was correct in reaching the decision that he did.