As readers may be aware, the courts are keen to enforce
adjudicators' decisions, even if they contain errors. As
Chadwick LJ put it back in 2006 in Carillion Construction
Ltd v Devonport Royal Dockyard: "the need to
have the right answer has been subordinated to the need to have the
answer quickly".
However, as George Boddy discusses, there are
circumstances where the courts will refuse to enforce all or part
of an adjudicator's decision.
Corebuild Ltd v Cleaver and Another
In Corebuild, the Court held that the adjudicator had
gone off on a "frolic of his own" rendering his decision
unenforceable because he had breached the rules of natural justice.
Corebuild demonstrates that while the Court will enforce
an adjudicator's decision if he or she gets the answer to the
question wrong, it will refuse to enforce if he or she answers the
wrong question entirely.
