Lanes Group Plc v Galliford Try Infrastructure Ltd

Contractual adjudication time limits must be construed in their context. A requirement that the referring party send the referral documents within two days of appointment is not necessarily a condition barring the adjudication if the deadline is missed. The court should distinguish sending from receipt and consider the contractual long-stop date, the extent and timing of any delay, and whether the breach materially affects the adjudication process or causes procedural unfairness. A short delay in transmitting supporting documents will not ordinarily impeach the adjudicator’s jurisdiction, particularly where the documents are received within the overall contractual timetable.

Lanes Group PLC brought a Part 8 claim concerning adjudications commenced by Galliford Try Infrastructure Ltd under a subcontract for works at Inverness Train Depot. Lanes sought an injunction restraining an adjudication before Mr Atkinson, arguing principally that Galliford Try had repudiated the adjudication agreement and, alternatively, that the referral and supporting documents had been served out of time.

The court adjourned the repudiation issue to permit further evidence concerning the circumstances in which the first adjudicator, Mr Klein, had not proceeded. The issue decided in this judgment was whether the timing of service of the referral documents invalidated Mr Atkinson’s appointment or jurisdiction.

1. The service challenge was rejected. Mr Atkinson’s jurisdiction could not be impeached on the ground that the referral documents were served late. The repudiation issue was adjourned, and other possible jurisdictional challenges were expressly left open.
2. Clauses 4.1 and 4.2 of the ICE adjudication procedure distinguish between sending and receiving documents. The obligation to send within two days concerns despatch to the adjudicator, while the date of referral is the date on which the adjudicator receives the documents.
3. The two-day requirement was not expressed as a condition subsequent or an unless provision. It did not automatically bar the adjudication where some supporting documents were received shortly after the deadline.
4. The contractual scheme contained an overall long-stop in clause 18B(1)(b): appointment and referral were to occur within seven days of the notice of adjudication. The procedure was not open-ended, but the documents here were delivered within that broader period.
5. The court applied a fact-sensitive approach. The referral itself was delivered within time, while the remaining documents were sent within a short period thereafter. Following the reasoning in PT Building Services Ltd v ROK Build Ltd [2008] EWHC 3434 (TCC), a trivial or short procedural breach would not invalidate an adjudication unless the deficiency was sufficiently serious to affect the process or natural justice.
6. Service by email was effective. The fact that Lanes did not have someone checking its email over the weekend did not convert the timing objection into a jurisdictional defect. Costs were reserved.