Vinci Construction UK Ltd v Beumer Group UK Ltd

Adjudicators’ decisions under construction contracts will generally be enforced summarily, even where the adjudicator may have made errors of fact or law. Enforcement may be refused for a breach of natural justice only in a plain case involving an obviously unfair process. The reasons need not resemble a court judgment. It is sufficient if their broad thrust is intelligible and the losing party has not suffered substantial prejudice. A challenge based on inconsistency with an earlier adjudication fails where the earlier decision determined different issues. An allegation that undisclosed material created unfairness also fails without evidence of inconsistency and a properly made request for disclosure.

Vinci applied for summary judgment to enforce an adjudicator’s decision requiring Beumer to pay £9,671,500 in liquidated damages, plus interest, under an NEC-based sub-contract for baggage-handling works at Gatwick Airport.

Beumer resisted enforcement on three grounds: alleged inconsistency with earlier adjudications, inadequate reasons, and failure to disclose material from an adjudication between Vinci and another sub-contractor. The central issue was whether any of those matters constituted a breach of natural justice sufficient to make the adjudicator’s decision unenforceable.

1. Summary judgment granted. The adjudicator’s decision was binding and enforceable. The court was not concerned on an enforcement application with whether the adjudicator’s conclusions on delay, substantiation or contractual time bars were correct.
2. The earlier adjudications had determined monetary compensation claims concerning particular compensation events. They had not determined Beumer’s later claims for extensions of time. The seventh adjudication therefore involved different issues, and there was no inconsistency requiring refusal of enforcement.
3. The applicable natural justice threshold was stringent. A breach sufficient to defeat enforcement required an obviously unfair adjudication. The reasons had to be absent or unintelligible and the complaint had to cause substantial prejudice. A decision could be confusing or repetitive and still be enforceable if its broad reasoning was discernible.
4. The adjudicator’s reasoning was sufficiently clear. He concluded that the extension-of-time claims were time-barred under clause 61.7 of the sub-contract and, in any event, lacked adequate supporting evidence and delay analysis. Vinci had relied on clause 61.7 during the adjudication, so the adjudicator had not decided an unargued issue.
5. Beumer had not established that Vinci had advanced an inconsistent case in the separate Balfour Beatty adjudication. Beumer had not made a proper application for disclosure to the adjudicator, and no material had been produced requiring disclosure or resignation. The alleged conflict and natural justice breach therefore did not arise.
6. The court ordered summary judgment for Vinci and invited counsel to prepare a draft order.

The judgment describes earlier related proceedings, including [2017] EWHC 2196 (TCC) and [2016] EWHC 2283 (TCC). This was a first-instance application for summary judgment to enforce the seventh adjudicator’s decision.