Court strikes out defence after contractor enters liquidation days before trial
The High Court has ruled decisively in favour of One Hyde Park Limited in a major construction dispute after the defendant contractor failed to attend trial and entered liquidation shortly before proceedings were due to begin.
In a judgment handed down on 2 February 2026, Mrs Justice Jefford DBE struck out the defence of Laing O’Rourke Construction South Limited, finding that the company had chosen not to participate in the trial despite having fully engaged in the litigation for years.
The claim concerned serious defects at One Hyde Park in Knightsbridge, a luxury residential development completed in 2011. One Hyde Park Limited, the freeholder, brought proceedings over extensive corrosion in chilled water pipework, failures in butterfly valves, leaking soldered joints and defects in a façade maintenance pantograph cradle.
The contractor had been appointed in 2007 to demolish Bowater House and construct the development. A collateral warranty was later provided to One Hyde Park Limited, warranting compliance with the main construction contract.
Corrosion in the chilled water pipework was discovered in 2014. Subsequent joint investigations revealed widespread and irreversible damage, with some pipe sections corroded by up to 87 percent. Expert evidence showed the corrosion resulted from failures in the installation of insulation vapour barriers, allowing moisture to reach the copper pipework.
The court heard that despite years of negotiations and participation in the proceedings, the defendant’s solicitors notified the court in February 2025 that the company could no longer fund its defence and would not attend trial. Days later, its parent company resolved to place it into creditors’ voluntary liquidation.
Mrs Justice Jefford described the decision to withdraw funding at such a late stage as “commercially amoral”, noting that there was no evidence before the court of wider financial difficulty within the corporate group.
Applying Civil Procedure Rules, the court struck out the defence but required the claimant to prove its case. One Hyde Park Limited presented unchallenged factual and expert evidence establishing breaches of contract and causation.
The court accepted that the chilled water system operated as a single, shared system across the building, placing responsibility for repair and replacement on the claimant as landlord. It rejected any suggestion that the pipework within apartments served individual units exclusively.
Damages were awarded across four categories. The largest sum, £34.4 million, related to the removal and replacement of corroded chilled water pipework. Further awards included £313,753 for defective butterfly valves, £179,392 for leaking soldered joints and £215,957 for remedial works to the pantograph cradle, liability for which had been admitted.
In total, the judgment represents a significant ruling on contractor liability, evidential standards where a defendant absents itself from trial, and the responsibilities arising from complex leasehold arrangements in high-value residential developments.