BRAVEJOIN COMPANY LIMITED v PROSPERITY MOSELEY STREET LIMITED

For adjudication jurisdiction, a dispute may crystallise without an express rejection of a claim. The court determines objectively whether a claim was made and disputed, considering the surrounding facts, contractual provisions and communications up to the date of crystallisation. Silence, non-payment or conduct may support an inference of dispute.

A party’s inquiry about the correct contracting entity does not abandon or withdraw an existing claim unless it amounts to an effective withdrawal, particularly where the responding party has not acted on it to its detriment. On enforcement, a merits-based challenge to the underlying claim is ordinarily irrelevant. An adjudication award will be enforced summarily where the adjudicator had jurisdiction and no defence has a real prospect of success.

The claimant sought summary judgment to enforce an adjudicator’s decision requiring the defendant to pay sums arising from steelwork and design services at a development site.

The defendant contended that no dispute had crystallised before the adjudication. It relied on uncertainty over the contracting party, including correspondence referring to another company in the same group. It also raised a substantive complaint that the claimant’s design was defective.

The central issues were whether a dispute existed when the adjudication began, whether the claimant had withdrawn or abandoned its claim, and whether the alleged design defect provided a defence to enforcement.

1. Summary judgment granted. The adjudicator had jurisdiction and the defendant was ordered to pay £39,038.66, with interest and costs.
2. A dispute had crystallised before the adjudication. The invoices referred to the defendant. Mr Hay, acting for the defendant, issued a payment notice and later pay less notices on the defendant’s behalf. The defendant’s failure to pay, together with its solicitors’ letter denying liability, objectively demonstrated that liability was disputed.
3. The claimant’s apparent uncertainty about whether the correct contracting party was the defendant or another group company did not withdraw or abandon the claim. At most, it raised the identity of the appropriate contracting party. There was no effective withdrawal and no evidence that the defendant acted to its detriment in reliance on one.
4. The defendant’s criticism of the claimant’s design was not a defence to enforcement. The application concerned enforcement of the adjudication award, not the underlying merits of the invoice claim. The adjudicator had jurisdiction to decide the referred dispute.
5. Indemnity costs were appropriate. The defence to enforcement was misconceived and had no real prospect of success. Costs of £23,857 were assessed on that basis, with doubts as to reasonableness resolved in favour of the receiving party and proportionality disregarded.