General Principles

Abstract The TCC and the Court of Appeal have repeatedly made it plain that errors of fact, errors of law and procedural errors will not, without more, justify a failure to comply with the adjudicator’s decision. As a result, the grounds for impeaching such a decision are extremely limited. By far the most common attack on the decision of an adjudicator is the submission that the adjudicator had no jurisdiction to reach that decision. Because courts have been clear that a decision will be summarily enforced unless it is one that the adjudicator did not have the jurisdiction to reach, commercial necessity has led defendants to take all manner of points to support the proposition that the adjudicator had no relevant jurisdiction.