An established principle under the Building and Construction
Industry Payments Act 2004 (BCIPA), and similar legislation in
other states is that "there can only be one adjudication
application for any particular payment claim for any particular
contract" 1. Payment claims which include claims
for work performed under separate contracts are invalid and can
never be the foundation of a valid adjudication application
2. These principles were recently applied in the NSW
case of Trinco 3 affirming the earlier Queensland
decision of Matrix Projects 4.
During the course of construction projects, the scope of work
may develop and change on the run. Changes to scope, scheduling of
work and/or rates charged can easily be accommodated under all
construction contracts commonly in use. These matters are dealt
with as variations, work program revisions and the like. If there
are multiple principals on the same project, where each is
responsible for separate but related components
