Castle had engaged Curot to carry out certain construction works at a bar and nightclub, pursuant to a Scottish Building Contract with Quantities form for use in Scotland 2005 with Contractor's Design Portion, March 2007 Edition, as amended and supplemented by the parties.

During the course of the works interim applications for payment were made, and a dispute arose concerning the amount valued on behalf of Castle, for Interim Application No. 21. Castle's quantity surveyor valued Application 21 which valuation was confirmed by Castle's contract administrator in Interim Certificate and Direction No. 21. Curot disagreed with this amount and referred the dispute to adjudication. The adjudicator decided that Curot were entitled to payment by Castle of £444,744.15 plus VAT, agreed at £77,830.23.

Following the decision Castle did not pay the award but applied for judicial review of the adjudicator's decision, to seek a reduction of the amount. A date for the judicial review hearing to take place was set for 25 November 2008. Almost immediately thereafter, Curot issued proceedings in the commercial court seeking enforcement of the adjudicator's decision, to which Castle lodged a defence. At a preliminary hearing it was decided that the proceedings to decide both actions would take place on the same date. The parties further agreed that whatever decision was reached in the enforcement proceedings would lead Lord Glennie to reach the same decision in the judicial review.

The dispute concerned variations to the contract. Prior to executing the contract the parties had agreed that a ‘Fit Out Budget Costs schedule" would be included in the contract documents. This did not include any of the detailed quantities and prices one might expect to find in a Bills of Quantities. Following execution of the contract Castle issued Bills of Quantities on an on-going basis for items to be priced by Curot. Curot priced the Bills of Quantities as received, and returned them to Castle. Thereafter, following agreement, Castle would accept the Bills of Quantities and instruct Curot to proceed.

Curot claimed that this procedure was adhered to when preparing earlier interim applications and that Castle had complied with this procedure and paid monies on this basis. Castle's defence was that this procedure did not comply with any of the methods for adjusting the contract sum as outlined in clause 4.3 of the contract, and therefore Curot were not entitled to be paid for these adjustments. The fact that Castle had used this procedure for previous interim applications did not mean that it could not be revisited and revised.

The adjudicator had decided that whilst normally he would seek to apply the strict terms of a contract he thought the form of contract was inappropriate for the current circumstances and, for reasons of reasonableness, he would not do so on this occasion.

The only defence ultimately pursued by Castle for non payment of the award, was that the adjudicator had exceeded his jurisdiction. He had erred in law, effectively ignored the contract and decided the case on the basis of what he perceived to be just and reasonable. The adjudicator had not posed himself the correct question to answer.

Lord Glennie, in enforcing the decision endorsed the adjudicator's reasoning:

"He says, in effect, that the defenders are adopting an over-literal construction which produces a wholly uncommercial result. I am conscious that I am paraphrasing what he says, but this seems to me to convey the essence of his reasoning. He would be reluctant to construe the contract in a way that produces so unreasonable a result. That is a perfectly legitimate consideration to take into account in considering the proper construction of the contract…he clearly asked the right question, namely what was the proper construction of the contract, and answered it."

The adjudicator also said that if he hadn't found the construction of the contract in favour of Curot, he would have found that Curot's alternative argument, the Scottish legal doctrine of personal bar, applied. Lord Glennie agreed. The equivalent doctrine under English law is that of estoppel and, although there are differences between the two, the overriding objective is similar.

Lord Glennie qualified only one aspect of the adjudicator's decision. The adjudicator had decided that drawings issued by the architect/contract administrator (which were not before him, but admitted to exist) constituted written instructions for variations. Castle submitted, and both Curot and Lord Glennie accepted, that in doing so the adjudicator had gone beyond the arguments raised by the pursuers at the adjudication. However, Lord Glennie made clear that this did not "contaminate any other aspect of the adjudicator's reasoning." Therefore, the adjudicator's decision was enforced.