Cases - GPS Marine Contractors Ltd v Ringway Infrastructure Services Ltd
Record details
- Name
- GPS Marine Contractors Ltd v Ringway Infrastructure Services Ltd
- Date
- [2010]
- Citation
- EWHC 283 (TCC)
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Adjudication - alleged lack of jurisdiction - appointment of an adjudicator
- Summary
-
A very general and unparticularised reservation of position based on alleged lack of jurisdiction was sufficient to enable the objecting party to subsequently raise specific jurisdiction points during enforcement In this case Ringway objected to the adjudicator’s appointment in the following terms:
'Our client does not accept that this adjudication has been validly commenced or that you have jurisdiction in respect of the referring party's claim for a number of reasons. These include the following:…'
They then added at the end:
'There may well be further jurisdiction issues which we have not yet had time or opportunity to investigate. Our client's position in this respect is reserved and the above list should not be understood to be exhaustive. In the circumstances our client does not consent to or accept your appointment as adjudicator.'
If it is alleged that the claim has been settled either before or after the adjudication that may prevent enforcement of the adjudicator’s decision because such an agreement would deprive the adjudicator of jurisdiction, but establishing whether or not there had been such agreement is unlikely to be resolvable on a summary judgment application. In this case the adjudicator’s decision was not enforced for that reason.
The adjudicator refused Ringway an opportunity to submit a rejoinder to GPS’s reply and refused to consider it when they did submit one anyway. The court found that the adjudicator had acted properly because the reply was confined to matters in the response and did not contain anything new.