![HT-2025-LDS-000006 - [2025] EWHC 2173 (TCC)](https://backend.juristeca.com/files/emisores/logo_yJUntHA.png){kind=logo}
The Issues
The Issues
The parties broadly agree on the issues to be determined:
Was the adjudicator in breach of natural justice by failing to give the parties an opportunity to comment?
Did the adjudicator fail to provide sufficient reasons in his decision of 17 January 2025?
If there was a breach, should any part of the decision be severed and enforced?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, although the parties agree on the issues, their focus on the important facts to be considered and their application of the law in respect of those facts differ in emphasis.
I do not propose to set out the majority of the evidence which I read, nor all the detail of the arguments raised by the parties. It is not necessary to do so. Although the witness statements in this case and the various appendices to them are lengthy, in my judgment, the issues in this case can be simplified.
The dispute between the parties comes down to whether it was a breach of natural justice for the adjudicator:
to fail to go back to the parties and ask for further submissions when he decided to use a new “fair and reasonable” rate and a single new measurement in respect of his valuation of a few individual items when asked to provide a gross valuation of Application 37; and
to fail to provide adequate reasons for his decision including to explain the decision he made on “fair and reasonable” rates and to explain the re-measurement he made for one item.
As will be seen from the arguments and evidence set out below, the Defendant approaches the issue from a micro standpoint and the Claimant approaches it from a macro standpoint.