Payment notice served too late

In Bouygues (UK) Ltd v Febrey Structures Ltd [2016] EWHC 1333 (TCC) Mr Jonathan Acton Davis QC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, held that the claimant had failed to serve a payment notice in time with the consequence that the payment notice which had been served was ineffective. An important feature of the case is the willingness of Mr Acton Davis QC to conclude that something had gone wrong with the language of the contract and then to ‘correct’ the wording of the contract by a process of interpretation. Thus he interpreted the reference in the contract to Appendix 8 as if it said Appendix 10 and, more importantly, he held that the payment notice date in the contract should have said 20 November and not 23 November. The consequence of this conclusion was that the payment notice served by the claimant on 23 November was held to be too late and was therefore ineffective.