Mr Justice Eyre rejected challenges over jurisdiction, reasons, natural justice and severance.
Construction adjudication award of £8.7million has been enforced by the High Court after Mr Justice Eyre rejected Avison Young’s challenges to the adjudicator’s decision. Mr Justice Eyre held that the adjudicator had addressed the dispute referred to him, provided adequate reasons and had not breached natural justice.
Coventry & Warwickshire Development Partnership LLP (CWDP) had engaged Avison Young as NEC project manager and NEC supervisor for development works at Gateway South in Coventry between January 2020 and January 2023.
The underlying project involved the development of an industrial and logistics park on a 215-acre site requiring substantial reclamation and remediation works. Buckingham Group Contracting Ltd was engaged to carry out earthworks involving around 5 million cubic metres of material. Avison Young was responsible for certifying sums due under monthly payment applications.
CWDP alleged that Avison Young had over-certified payments by accepting reduced baseline quantities, relying excessively on information supplied by Buckingham and failing to identify defects. It claimed these failures caused losses after Buckingham became insolvent.
An adjudicator, Franco Mastrandrea, awarded CWDP £8,729,179.33 plus interest on 13 February 2026. The adjudicator concluded that Avison Young had failed to perform its duties with the required standard of skill and care and had significantly over-certified the Price for Work Done to Date.
Avison Young resisted enforcement, arguing principally that the adjudicator had answered a different question from the one referred to him. It also alleged inadequate reasons and breaches of natural justice, particularly concerning the adjudicator’s use of a Gardiner & Theobald assessment produced in March 2024.
Mr Justice Eyre rejected those arguments. He found that the adjudicator had given advance notice that he was considering the Gardiner & Theobald material and had invited submissions from the parties. Although the approach ultimately adopted had not been advanced by either side, the parties had been given an opportunity to address it.
The judge also rejected the argument that the adjudicator had failed to give adequate reasons. Reading the decision as a whole, he found that it was clear what the adjudicator had decided and why.
The court further declined to sever parts of the adjudicator’s decision concerning retention and defects. Mr Justice Eyre said that the retention finding formed part of the continuous reasoning by which the adjudicator calculated CWDP’s loss. Recalculating the award would effectively recast the decision rather than sever a distinct part of it.
The judgment also reaffirmed the established approach to adjudication enforcement: courts generally enforce an adjudicator’s decision even where errors of fact, law or procedure are alleged, unless there is an excess of jurisdiction or a sufficiently serious breach of natural justice.
Mr Justice Eyre held that CWDP was entitled to summary judgment to enforce the adjudicator’s decision.