The adjudicator came down on the side of Bilton & Johnson (Building) Ltd. He ordered Three Rivers Property Investments Ltd to repay £228,273.48 previously and wrongly deducted for liquidated damages for late completion. But it wouldn’t. So the builder asked the High Court to nudge it into paying. Very politely the judge said that Three Rivers’ refusal was “ill founded” – so pay up.

Two grounds were put up for not immediately honouring the adjudicator’s decision, according to the loser. First, “the adjudicator had acted in breach of natural justice by reaching a decision on a basis which had not been advanced by either party and on which Three Rivers had no opportunity to make representations.” Now then, adjudicators often do that. In this case the adjudicator had twigged that the contract at the outset was changed once the JCT document was issued and signed up to by both companies.

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