Assignee not entitled to enforce decision of adjudicator

In Grove Construction (London) Ltd v Bagshot Manor Ltd [2025] EWHC 591 (TCC), District Judge Baldwin held that the claimant was not entitled to enforce the decision of an adjudicator because the parties to the adjudication were not the parties to the contract under which the dispute had been referred to adjudication. The defendant was an assignee of the contract and, as an assignee, it had acquired the rights of the assignor but not the liabilities or the burdens. Consequently, the adjudication clause in the contract between the claimant and the assignor did not bind the defendant so that the adjudicator lacked jurisdiction to decide the dispute which had been referred to him. Parties entering into an assignment of a construction contract that makes provision for disputes to be resolved by referral to adjudication should take note and, if the intention is to bind the assignee to the adjudication clause, then the consent of the parties to the original construction contract and the assignee should be obtained (in other words there should be a novation of the construction contract).