Cases - Ferson Contractors Ltd v Levolux A T Ltd

Record details

Name
Ferson Contractors Ltd v Levolux A T Ltd
Date
[2003]
Citation
EWCA Civ 11
Legislation
Keywords
Construction contracts - adjudication - subcontracts- contract conflicting with Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 - enforcement - summary judgment - obligation to pay - withholding notice - termination - whether the adjudicator's decision should be enforced - whether the obligation to pay the amount in the adjudicator's decision should take precedence over a contractual clause where that clause conflicted with the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 - GC/Works/Sub-Contract - Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996, section 111
Summary

This was a Court of Appeal decision following summary judgment to enforce the decision of an adjudicator to the effect that additional sums were payable to Levolux (a subcontractor to Ferson).

Ferson appealed a decision of the first instance court that summary judgment should be given enforcing the adjudicator's decision. Ferson were appealing on the basis that the subcontract had been terminated. Pursuant to the terms of the subcontract, 'all sums of money that may be due or accruing due from the contractor to the subcontractor will cease to be due or to accrue due'.

The Court of Appeal found that the contract must be construed so as to give effect to the intention of parliament rather than to defeat it. If that cannot be achieved by way of construction, then the offending clause must be struck down. The court suggested that in this case the intentions of parliament could be given effect without the need to strike out any particular clause, and that was by the means of reading the clauses (set out above) as not applying to monies due by reason of an adjudicator's decision.