The claimant, RMC Building & Civil Engineering Ltd, applied for summary judgment in proceedings to enforce an adjudicator’s decision. The defendant, UK Construction    Ltd,   challenged the enforcement proceedings arguing that it will cause manifest injustice. Edwards- Stuart J enforced the adjudicator’s decision and   refused to   grant   a stay pending the defendant’s Part 8 application for declaratory relief.

The defendant contested the adjudicator’s decision that the application for payment had not been withdrawn and that the claimant was endeavouring to obtain payment from the defendant which was not forthcoming. Edwards-Stuart J held that such a conclusion was plainly open to the adjudicator and was a response to one of the questions put forward to be determined at the time. Thus, it was a matter within his jurisdiction and whether he was right or wrong in the conclusion he reached was irrelevant for the court. Further, the claimant was entitled to rely on the without prejudice rule to render some of the submitted documents as inadmissible as they were made during attempts to resolve the dispute between the parties.

The defendant’s further ground for challenging the adjudicator’s decision was that he had exceeded his jurisdiction by awarding the claimant a sum in excess of the cap contained in paragraph 2(4) of Part II of the Scheme for Construction Contracts. However, Edwards-Stuart J held that the defendant failed to identify the contract price so could not successfully show that the sum awarded was in excess of the cap.  A stay enforcement of the decision of the adjudicator, either in whole or in part, was rejected by Edwards-Stuart J as the defendant had failed to demonstrate that it would suffer financial hardship or be unable to recover any overpayment from the claimant when the dispute was finally resolved.

Finally, it seems that a manifest injustice argument will only be successful in rare cases similar to Galliford Try v Estura [2015] EWHC 412 (TCC).