High Court: Technology and Construction Court judgments, 2021

Under regulation 92(4) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, the court has an open-ended discretion to extend the 30-day period where there is a good…

A Tomlin order is construed as a contract, using the ordinary principles of contractual construction. Its provisions must be read in their factual and…

A company director may be liable jointly with the company for a tort where the director’s participation or involvement goes beyond exercising constitutional…

For adjudication jurisdiction, a dispute may crystallise without an express rejection of a claim. The court determines objectively whether a claim was made and…

Applications to lift an automatic suspension in a procurement challenge are determined by applying ordinary American Cyanamid principles. Where damages…

Summary judgment is inappropriate where liability depends on disputed issues about whether particular damage was caused by the defendant’s acts or omissions.…

A binding agreement may arise from a short and imperfectly recalled conversation where the court can determine its gist on the balance of probabilities and…

A parent company guarantee must be construed as a whole. Wording requiring a guarantor to perform or procure performance of the subsidiary’s obligations may…

Indemnity costs require conduct or circumstances taking the case out of the norm. A defendant who beats its own Part 36 offer is not automatically entitled to…

Expert evidence is permitted by the court and is subject to strict duties of independence, objectivity, transparency and equality of arms. Experts and…

An adjudicator may investigate facts and law necessary to determine the dispute, but that power is not a roving commission to identify and decide a fundamental…

A professional designer is liable only for loss effectively caused by the breach of duty or contract. Where construction defects, later decisions, or failures…

An adjudication decision remains binding and enforceable under the parties’ contractual scheme unless and until successfully challenged before the court or…

For a contractual variation to amalgamate separate construction contracts, the parties’ conduct must be unequivocal and consistent only with an agreement to…

Applications for further information and specific disclosure in judicial review proceedings are exceptional. The court must assess necessity and…

In a building contract dispute, an undisclosed principal may sue and be sued on an agent’s contract where the agent acted within actual authority and the…

Permission to amend pleadings shortly before trial should be refused where the proposed case has no real prospect of success. Even if it is arguable, the…

In judicial review proceedings, disclosure is not automatic. Specific disclosure should be ordered only where necessary to resolve the issues fairly and…

Where a claimant seeks, after expiry, to extend time for serving a claim form, the conditions in rule 7.6(3) of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 are exhaustive.…

A stay of enforcement of a judgment not under appeal is exceptional in an ordinary commercial case. A party seeking a stay must identify a real, rather than…

A cost-capping order in judicial review proceedings may be made only where the statutory conditions are satisfied. The proceedings must concern an issue of…

Under an NEC-style adjudication contract, a notice preserving the right to challenge an adjudicator’s decision must be clear and unambiguous, but it need not…

A letter of intent may create a binding interim contract covering works identified by the objective contractual context, even where the detailed scope and…

A post-judgment freezing order requires a good arguable case, assets within the relevant jurisdiction, a real risk that assets will be dissipated or secreted…

An adjudicator may handle a hybrid construction contract containing included and excluded operations, provided that the dispute determined relates only to…

Exclusion and limitation clauses are construed under the ordinary principles of contractual construction. There is no rule or presumption that such clauses…

At the permission stage of judicial review, an apparent-bias claim is arguable where the available evidence could lead a fair-minded observer to think that an…

Costs are discretionary, but an interested party in procurement litigation must ordinarily show either a separate issue on which it was entitled to be heard or…

In a complex construction project, an independent Category 3 checker engaged by a subcontractor did not owe the main contractor a duty of care for economic…

On an application to strike out or obtain summary judgment, a claimant must plead a positive, coherent and sufficiently particularised case. A claim based only…

Public authorities do not generally owe private individuals a duty of care merely because they exercise statutory powers or duties. A duty may nevertheless…

Insurance cover is construed principally from the language used by the parties. Commercial common sense and background circumstances cannot justify a strained…

In a procurement challenge under the Utilities Contracts Regulations 2016, the court exercises a supervisory jurisdiction. It does not re-evaluate tenders or…

A costs capping order in judicial review proceedings requires a two-stage assessment. The court must first decide whether the statutory threshold is met…

An exclusive foreign jurisdiction clause does not prevent an English court from enforcing an adjudicator’s decision where the enforcement proceedings fall…

A contractual milestone payment may become due independently of other project milestones where the contract identifies it as a free-standing, time-based…

A claimant must plead every ground of claim in its Particulars of Claim. A Reply may introduce facts to refute a defence, but it cannot introduce a new claim…

A pleading will not be struck out merely because it uses a narrative, sampling exercise or global claim. Primary facts may be pleaded from which the court…

Permission to appeal may properly be refused with fuller reasons where the litigation is unusually complex, but grounds of appeal must remain concise and…

Regulation 95 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 applies whenever its express conditions are met, including where the procurement falls within an…

A contractual change-in-law mechanism must be construed by examining its language in context. Where a contract incorporates an existing variation procedure…

For the purposes of an exclusive jurisdiction clause under the Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012, consensus must be clearly and precisely demonstrated, but need not…

Under regulation 92(2) of the Public Contract Regulations 2015, time runs when the economic operator knows or ought to know facts which apparently clearly…

After expiry of the limitation period, substitution under CPR r. 19.5 requires proof that the named party was included by mistake for the intended party and…