“(1) Arup will provide assistance with the overall project management of the Northern Powerhouse feasibility study programme, noting that other consultants will also be working on the feasibility study and their work will need to be coordinated with the Arup activities; (2) Arup will carry out focused technical feasibility studies in the areas of tunnel design, route selection and station layout; (3) Arup will carry out limited operational assessments and transport capacity assessments sufficient to define the system for tunnel and station design purposes; (4) Arup will carry out preliminary costing exercises and system economic assessments. (5) Arup will provide output material for inclusion in the Northern Powerhouse feasibility study report, which will be produced by others.”
“The fee for conducting the studies defined above will be£350,000 plus VAT, costed at our normal rates. A definition of the anticipated expenditure profile for the project is appended. We are prepared to discount the above fee to£150,000 plus VAT in exchange for a 20% share in the ownership of the enterprise which is to be established as soon as possible between DC and HTI.”
“Further to our telephone call this morning, this note confirms that DCN/CBI acknowledge the debt total of 350k for work undertaken. We are only able to settle this debt in instalments as follows: (1) 75k paid to date; (2) A further 75k to be paid 30 days from the date of invoice; (3) A further 75k to be paid three months later; (4) The balance to be arranged according to cash availability. I trust that you will accept the above as good intention and that all material required to complete the DCN brochure currently in preparation will be available by close of business Thursday,13th October 2016 .”
“Arup has provided professional engineering services to CBI pursuant to a contract between the parties (“The Appointment”) entered into on or around14 April 2016 and varied by agreement on or around11 October 2016 .”
“91. In my view, the purpose of the 1996 Act would be substantially defeated if a responding party could, as a matter of course, reserve its position on jurisdiction in general terms at the start of an adjudication, thereby avoiding any ruling by the adjudicator or the taking of any remedial steps by the referring party; participate fully in the nuts and bolts of the adjudication, either without raising any detailed jurisdiction points, or raising only specific points which were subsequently rejected by the adjudicator (and the court); and then, having lost the adjudication, was allowed to comb through the documents in the hope that a new jurisdiction point might turn up at the summary judgment stage, in order to defeat the enforcement of the adjudicator’s decision at the eleventh hour… 92. In my view, informed by that starting-point, the applicable principles on waiver and general reservations in the adjudication context are as follows: (i) If the responding party wishes to challenge the jurisdiction of the adjudicator then it must do so “appropriately and clearly”
“CBI does not accept that Part 2 of theHousing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 , or theScheme for Construction Contracts Regulations 1998 , apply to the matter or matters referred to in the notice and fully reserves CBI’s position in relation to jurisdiction. CBI does not accept that this adjudication has been validly commenced or that the appointment adjudicator has jurisdiction in respect of the referring party’s claim for the brief reasons set out below.”
“Whilst CBI will participate in the adjudication, it will do so under protest and without prejudice to its contention that any adjudicator or adjudicators that are appointed lack jurisdiction. CBI therefore disputes jurisdiction on the grounds summarised above and on further jurisdictional issues that we have not yet had the opportunity to investigate in the limited time we have had since the service of the notice.”
“The responding party, CBI, does not accept that this adjudication has been validly commenced or that the appointed adjudicator has jurisdiction in respect of the referring party’s claim, for the reasons set out herein. By an email dated11 October 2018 , CBI gave notice that it challenged jurisdiction, which it will continue to maintain throughout the course of this adjudication. The rest of the submissions made within this document are made without prejudice to CBI’s challenge to jurisdiction.”
“CBI says, without explanation, the matters referred to the adjudicator do not fall within the scope of Part 2 of the 1996 Act. Arup disagrees.”
“The issue has not been developed in detail by CBI in the response and there has been no issue taken with Arup’s letter of 12 October in this regard.”
“I accept the case for Arup, as set out in paragraphs 4-7 in its letter of 12 October.”
“(i) At the time it was provided, the objector knew or should have known of specific grounds … ii) [Or that it] was worded in that way simply to try and ensure that all options … could be kept open …” could be kept open …”
“The appointment was a construction contract and the services to be performed and each of them was in relation to construction operations within the meaning ofsection 104 of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 .”
“Save that CBI expressly denies the jurisdiction of the adjudicator to adjudicate upon this dispute for the reasons set out herein, paragraph 15 is admitted.”
“The referred claim is brought under more than one contract and/or raises more than one dispute and, secondly, the adjudication is being brought against the wrong party.”
‘(1) In this Part a “construction contract” means an agreement with a person for any of the following - (a) the carrying out of construction operations; … (2) References in this Part to a construction contract include an agreement - (a) to do architectural, design, or surveying work, or (b) to provide advice on building, engineering … in relation to construction operations.’
“(b) construction … forming, or to form, part of the land, including (without prejudice to the foregoing) walls, roadworks, power-lines, electronic communications apparatus, aircraft runways, docks and harbours, railways [and so forth].”