Cases - RJT Consulting Engineers Ltd v D M Engineering (Northern Ireland) Ltd
Record details
- Name
- RJT Consulting Engineers Ltd v D M Engineering (Northern Ireland) Ltd
- Date
- [2002]; (2002); (2002); (2002)
- Citation
- EWCA Civ 270; 1 WLR 2344; BLR 217: 83 Con LR 99; CILL 1841
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Construction contracts - Adjudication - Jurisdiction - Oral contracts - Evidenced in writing - Whether whole agreement evidenced in writing - Entire agreement - Substance of agreement - Terms material to the dispute - Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996, section 107
- Summary
-
The appellant, RJT Consulting Engineers Ltd, was a practice of consulting engineers. It was retained by the Holiday Inn, Liverpool, to provide the outline design for mechanical and electrical work that was to be undertaken as part of the refurbishment of the hotel. The main contractor engaged the respondent, DM Engineering (NI) Ltd, as the mechanical and electrical subcontractor. The consultant engineers became involved with the subcontractors in the negotiation to establish a price for that work, eventually agreed at about £1.8m. The subcontracted works included completion of some design, and DM Engineering asked RJT if the consultants would complete the design on their behalf. A fee of £12,000 was agreed.
DM Engineering subsequently claimed some £858,000 from RJT for alleged negligent design and/or breach of contract and sought to refer the dispute to adjudication. The appellants challenged the right to seek adjudication, denying that the agreement was in writing and within Part II of the Act.
At first instance, the court found that the agreement was not a contract in writing. Section 107 required the whole of the agreement to be contained or evidenced in writing. The only exception to this was section 107(5), which relates to the exchange of written submissions in adjudication proceedings.
In the Court of Appeal Lord Justice Ward and Lord Justice Auld agreed that the appeal should be allowed, but not because the whole agreement was not in writing in any of the forms for which section 107 of the 1996 Act makes provision, but because the material terms of the agreement were insufficiently recorded in writing in any of those forms.