HT-2025-000079 - [2025] EWHC 2634 (TCC)

The Defendant says that damages would not be an adequate remedy for it if the suspension were to be maintained. It relies on two matters: first, the benefits which will flow from the Contract with the services being provided in accordance with the new arrangements; second, the desirability of making the transition to the new arrangements outside a time of conflict. The Defendant accepts that both of these also feed into the assessment of the balance of convenience and I will address the latter as part of that exercise. The Claimant says that the former element has no substance and should not be regarded as meaning that damages will not be an adequate remedy for the Defendant. It says that this is because there is no material difference between the current arrangements and those which will be in place when the Contract comes into effect.

It is well-established that the loss of an opportunity to introduce changes which are seen by the relevant public authority as a benefit is a loss for which damages will not be an adequate remedy: see by way of example Teleperformance Contact Ltd v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2023] EWHC 2481 (TCC ), (2023) 211 Con LR 113 at [66(3)] and One Medicare at [55].

As I explained in Medequip Assertive Technology at [110] it will not normally be an answer to this point for a claimant to contend that the changes are not in fact material or that they do not amount to an improvement. The effect of the continuation of the suspension in circumstances such as those here is that the public body in question is being prevented for arranging for services to be provided in the form and on the terms which it wishes and which it regards as beneficial. That is a loss which cannot be compensated in damages. The point is reinforced by the fact that consideration of the balance of convenience is required unless the court is satisfied that damages will be an adequate remedy: where there is doubt as to the adequacy of damages it is necessary to turn to the balance of convenience.

In the circumstances here it cannot be said that damages would necessarily be an adequate remedy for the Defendant if the suspension were to be maintained.