A contractor has lost its High Court appeal against a payment of more than £100,000 to a subcontractor that carried out mechanical and electrical (M&E) work on one of its projects.
Project One London Ltd (POL) had been ordered by an adjudicator to pay Loughton-based VMA Services Ltd £106,434.88 after ruling on 10 February 2025 that VMA was owed the money.
The adjudicator had carried out a valuation of POL’s application in order to determine its “true value”.
But they determined that a true value adjudication brought by POL could not be entertained because POL had not paid a notified sum and that VMA should be awarded the sum, the court heard.
POL appealed the adjudicator’s decision in the High Court on the grounds the adjudicator did not have jurisdiction. But deputy judge Adrian Williamson KC upheld the original ruling.
“I agree with VMA that this adjudicator did have the jurisdiction to order payment of the sums awarded,” the judge said.
The businesses entered into a contract in October 2023 for the design and installation of mechanical works at 1-4 Munro Terrace and 112-114 Cheyne Walk in London.
The court heard VMA submitted an application for payment on 21 June 2024 for works completed up to and including 30 June 2024.
The gross sum of the application totalled £274,259.81, leaving a net value of the works complete, less retention, of £260,546.83 (retention at £13,712.98), and leaving a payment due of £106,434.88 after the deduction of previous payments, the court said.
However, the judge said POL “served no Payment Notice or Pay Less Notice timeously or at all”.
“POL sought to argue that the decision should not be enforced for a variety of other reasons, not all of which were easy to follow.
“In my view this is a classic case of a losing party seeking to comb through the adjudicator’s reasons and identify points upon which to present a challenge under the labels ‘excess of jurisdiction’ or ‘breach of natural justice’.”
He said this was a practice “deprecated as long ago as 2005” at the Court of Appeal in a case involving Carillion and Devonport Royal Dockyard.
In that case the owners of Devonport Royal Dockyard challenged an adjudicator’s decision to award Carillion £10m owed for work the contractor carried out on the Plymouth nuclear submarine base. It lost its bid and had to pay Carillion.
In VMA’s case, the judge found the adjudicator had acted “perfectly fairly” and there was “no breach of natural justice”.
On its LinkedIn page, VMA Services says it was established in 2016 and grew from an M&E consulting service to a full service provider predominantly working in London.
POL describes itself as a main contractor operating within the super prime residential and commercial sectors of London, undertaking projects from £1,000 to £10m.