HT-2023-BHM-000003 - [2024] EWHC 1089 (TCC)

The Claimant accepts that one of its invoices duplicates sums claimed in other invoices and clarified it did not seek to recover twice for the same sums.

The invoices that are the subject of the claim are monthly invoices for the costs of supplying fencing and plant at the site between September 2016 and October 2017 , when little progress was made on site other than site clearance and what are described as “standstill charges”. The monthly charges are £11,960, being weekly charges at £490 per week for hire of plant and fencing and £10,000 per month standstill charges. However, there is no contractual entitlement to these sums. Nor is there any evidence that the amounts were agreed between the parties.

Mr Matharu accepted in his oral evidence that the invoices dated between 1 September 2016 and 1 May 2017, which are numbered 20180A to 20180H, may have been issued at the same time as each other, as it is not the Claimant’s usual practice to number invoices with letters after the numbers. By May 2017, it is clear that the question of whether the Defendant would honour the Contract was, as least, seriously in doubt. The correspondence shows that the Claimant had said it intended to remove the plant and fencing from the site unless it received payment.

In oral evidence, Mr Ubhi and Mr Matharu explained that the figure of £10,000 represented the directors’ lost earnings, since they would have expected to each earn £5,000 per month from the Claimant while performing the Contract, and they had lost income as a result of being on site ready to perform the Contract. It is clear to me that the figure of £10,000 in each of the invoices is really a claim for the Claimant’s lost profit and, if the Claimant were to recover the standstill charges as well as its claim for lost profit, it would make a double recovery for the same loss.

The remainder of the sums invoiced are for hire charges for plant, including cabins, toilet facilities, canteen facilities and Heras fencing for the site. This was charged at £490 per week. Although the Claimant has not produced detailed documentary evidence of the actual hire charges it incurred, there is documentary evidence that it had had the items on hire and that, in June 2017, the Claimant requested the removal of four units, including a canteen, and that there would be early termination charges due to the hire contract running until 1 March 2018. I am satisfied that the Claimant incurred a cost in hiring fencing and plant so it was able to clear the site and be ready to perform the Contract, which it is entitled to recover as damages for the Defendant’s breach of contract for failing to honour the Contract. I will allow the charges for plant and machinery at £490 per week claimed in the Claimant’s invoices identified in the Particulars of Claim, but will not allow the standstill charges, which would amount to a double recovery of the Claimant’s lost profit.