HT-2025-LDS-000006 - [2025] EWHC 2173 (TCC)

In addition to the reasons set out above considering whether there was any breach of the rules of natural justice, I do not accept that the adjudicator failed to provide sufficient reasons in his decision. Again, I find that the approach taken by the Defendant is simply too granular and unrealistic when considering the aims and purposes of the 1996 Act and Scheme.

The Defendant relies upon the fact that within days, the adjudicator provided additional workings and, even then, the Defendant asserts it could not understand adequately the reasons for the adjudicator’s decision. At least part of the difficulty with that submission is that it was the Defendant who asked the adjudicator to provide his workings. In my judgment, just because the adjudicator provided his workings and answered questions in relation to his reasoning when asked directly by the Defendant does not mean that his initial decision was such as to amount to a failure to provide adequate reasons.

If the adjudicator had been asked to declare the value of each and every item and sub item, the Defendant’s arguments would have been stronger. However, against the background of a broadbrush process where the overall values arrived at for the different elements of Application 37 are set out, there is sufficient detail in the 88 page decision to enable the parties to understand how the adjudicator came to his decision in the round.

I accept that the reasons provided are broad brush, making references throughout using footnotes to submissions and documents. Fuller reasons could have been set out, but that does not mean the reasons given were inadequate. In my judgment, the reasons given cannot possibly be said to be “so incoherent that it makes it impossible for the reasonable reader to make sense of them” (per Clerk LJ in Gillies Ramsay Diamond at paragraph 31). Detailed reasons, workings and explanations do not have to be given in respect of each individual sub item when the dispute put to the adjudicator is one concerning a global valuation.

Even if I am wrong on this point and the decision is unintelligible by reason of the inadequacy of the reasons given in the decision, for the reasons given above, I do not accept that the Defendant is able to demonstrate that it suffered substantial prejudice when looking at the facts for the reasons given above.