Successful Challenge To Adjudicator’s Jurisdiction

The Court of Appeal recently refused permission to appeal against a judgement that rendered an adjudicator’s decision invalid because he lacked jurisdiction. Briefly:

The Contractor had, in its adjudication notice, sought to refer four disputes in the same reference. The Scheme for Construction Contracts applied and (like many other rules) only allows one dispute to be referred at a time, unless the parties agree otherwise.

The Court held that the disputes were independent and unrelated. Without the Employer’s consent, the adjudicator had no jurisdiction to determine more than one dispute.

While the Employer did not consent, it did not expressly complain either. Instead it generally reserved its right to take any further points as to the adjudicator’s jurisdiction. This was sufficiently wide to enable the Employer to rely successfully on the multiple disputes defence when the decision came to be enforced.