The decision here concerned a dispute between a contractor and subcontractor for works to Scottish Power Energy Networks. The subcontractor, Sked, claimed that an adjudicator’s decision in the sum £114k should not be enforced because it was made in breach of the requirements of natural justice. Sked said that the adjudicator’s conclusion that “time was at large” did not reflect the submissions that had been made by the parties. During the adjudication neither party had submitted that time was at large and that in reaching a decision that this was the position, the adjudicator was on a “frolic of his own”.
Lord Lake disagreed. Although the adjudicator did refer in his decision to time being at large, this was a consequence of his decision on the matters put before him rather than the reason for that decision. The adjudicator had been asked to decide whether Sked had established an entitlement to a contra charge against Entexol’s application for payment on the basis that the works were not completed in the time required by the contract. Sked claimed that the contract required that the works were completed by 13 November 2024 and the adjudicator had to consider whether he accepted that this date was the one by which the works were to be completed. The adjudicator did not, which meant that Sked had not established a key element of this part of their case and the contra charge would not be allowed. Whilst it was perhaps open to question whether this would be described as meaning that time was at large rather than that the works would have to be completed within a reasonable time, that did not affect the outcome.
This was not a case in which the adjudicator undertook investigations or inquiries of his own. Instead, the adjudicator rejected the basis of the case put forward Sked, who did not fail in their argument as to contra charges because “time was at large”; rather, they failed to establish that the works should have been completed by the date they claimed.