Substantial compensation has been secured for a nine-year-old boy who suffers from cerebral palsy...
Following adjudication, the winning party can apply to the Technology and Construction Court to enforce the adjudicator’s decision by proceedings with a summary judgment application. The TCC’s approach is to uphold an adjudicator’s decision unless the adjudicator clearly had no jurisdiction or there had been a serious breach of natural justice. The TCC will not interfere with the decision if the adjudicator has made an error in procedure, law or fact. Authorities make it clear, that in the overwhelming majority of cases, the proper course for a party who is unsuccessful in an adjudication under the scheme must be to pay the amount that he has been ordered to pay by the adjudicator. If the paying party does not accept the adjudicator’s decision as correct, he can take legal action in order to establish the true position and if he is successful seek to recover the sum paid.
A stay of execution of an adjudicator’s decision may be ordered in limited circumstances where there is good evidence that the successful party would be unable to repay any sums ordered to be paid in the adjudication in the event that the effect of the decision was reversed in later proceedings. If the contractor is in insolvent liquidation or it is not disputed that the contractor is insolvent then a stay of execution will usually be granted. Even if the evidence of the contractor’s present financial position suggests that it would be unable to repay the judgment sum, that would not usually justify a stay if the contractor’s financial position was the same or similar to the contractor’s financial position at the time when the contract was made or its position was due either, wholly or significantly in part, to the employer’s failure to pay the sums awarded by the adjudicator.
In the case of Alexander & Law Ltd v Coveside (21 BPR) Ltd [2013] EWHC 3949 (TCC), summary judgment was granted following an adjudication but a stay of execution was ordered because of ongoing winding up proceedings against the claimant and because the claimant could not show that its financial situation was a result of non-payment of the monies subject to the adjudicator’s decision (either wholly or in part).