In previous articles and at our annual case law review in April of this year, we discussed the importance of the Court of Appeal decision in S & T (UK) Limited v Grove Developments Limited [2018] and its impact on adjudications concerning the failure of an employer to comply with interim payment provisions. Please see our previous article here and video presentations here on this topic.
While in our view the decision in that case had significant ramifications for the construction industry and the tactical use of adjudication in disputes, this was caveated at the time with the knowledge that an appeal to the Supreme Court was being pursued and that the new legal landscape the case had created might yet be overturned.
At the Society of Construction Law’s London conference on 19 September, which was attended by Stevens & Bolton LLP, it was announced that the appeal had been withdrawn as the parties involved had come to an undisclosed settlement. This has subsequently been confirmed by other sources.
This means that the decision in S & T (UK) Limited v Grove Developments Limited [2018] remains the guiding authority until such time as the same issues can be considered by the Supreme Court in a different case.
Therefore it remains that if an Adjudicator finds that a party must pay a notified sum because that party failed to issue a payment/payless notice in time, then that party is required to pay the sum in question before it can seek to commence a new adjudication as the true value of the works.
Gwilym Evans