No valid assignment to subsequent transferee of property

In Aviva Investors Ground Rent Group GP Ltd v Shepherd Construction Ltd [2021] EWHC 1921 (TCC) Jefford J held that the defendant was entitled to strike out the claimants’ application to join the original employer of the defendant as a party to the litigation on the ground that the assignment on which the claimants sought to rely was invalid because it did not comply with the terms of the original contract between the employer and the defendant. The defendant had not consented to the assignment as required by one of the terms of the contract and in relation to the other term it was held, as a matter of construction, to apply only to an assignment by the employer and did not apply to a case, such as the present, where the assignment was not to a party to whom the employer had assigned the benefit of the contract but to a subsequent transferee of the property.