EQUITIX ESI CHP (WREXHAM) LTD v BESTER GENERACION UK LTD

[2018] EWHC 177 (TCC), Technology and Construction Court, Coulson J, 8 February 2018

Section 105 of the Housing Grants Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 – Excluded matters – General and specific reservations on jurisdiction – Stay of execution

The claimant brought an action to enforce the decision of an adjudicator. The defendant sought to resist enforcement on two principal grounds. The first was that the contract included works which were excluded from the Housing Grants Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 so that the adjudicator did not have jurisdiction to decide the dispute which had been referred to him. This submission was rejected by Coulson J, who declined to adopt an interpretation of section 105 of the Act which would make a 'nonsense' of the Act. It was held that the dispute which had been decided by the adjudicator was one that related to the validity of the claimant's termination of the contract with the defendant and the sums due in consequence by way of the Interim Account. Given that it was common ground that no excluded operations were ever carried out prior to the termination of the contract between the parties, it was held that there was no basis for the conclusion that the adjudicator lacked jurisdiction.