Goodman Derrick's construction group has successfully acted
for a party in an enforcement action in the Technology and
Construction Court. This was the first time the Court has had to
grapple with the jurisdiction of an adjudicator to decide upon
another adjudicator's jurisdiction, as set out in the Notice of
Adjudication.
Penten Group Ltd v
Spartafield Ltd involved the application, very unusually, of
a Responding Party in an adjudication seeking to confirm that an
adjudicator's decision was enforceable, as the Referring Party
was trying to cherry pick the elements of an adjudicator's
decision it accepted and not comply with those that it did
not. In particular, in this case Spartafield did not like the
adjudicator's decision on the terms of the contract and
therefore sought a declaration from another adjudicator, that the
first adjudicator did not have jurisdiction to make the decision he
did. By the time of the hearing Spartafield, despite having
issued three
