Specialists International
This Knowledge Check tests your understanding of the decision of the Technology and Construction Court in Laing O'Rourke Delivery Limited v Shepperton Studios Limited [2026] EWHC 612 (TCC). The contractor applied to enforce an adjudicator's decision that an employer's payment notice and pay less notice were invalid, and the court had to work through the validity of both notices, an argument based on five earlier adjudications, and an application for a stay. The judgment matters to anyone drafting or challenging interim payment notices, because it separates the consequences of an invalid payment notice from those of a validly detailed pay less notice.
Under a building contract dated 16 November 2021, Laing O'Rourke Delivery Limited was the contractor and Shepperton Studios Limited the employer. The adjudicator held that the employer's payment notice and pay less notice for application for payment 45 were invalid because they did not set out how the sum said to be due had been calculated, and decided that the employer must pay GBP 5,627,275.11 plus VAT with contractual interest. The employer resisted enforcement on four grounds and had issued parallel Part 8 proceedings. Simon Lofthouse KC, sitting as a Deputy Judge of the High Court, heard the enforcement application on 3 March 2026 and handed down judgment on 16 March 2026.
The court applied the guidance on Part 8 proceedings alongside enforcement in Hutton Construction Ltd v Wilson Properties (London) Ltd and A&V Building Solutions Ltd v J&B Hopkins Ltd, the interpretation principles in Arnold v Britton, the treatment of parallel adjudication decisions in HS Works Ltd v Enterprise Managed Services Ltd and S&T (UK) Ltd v Grove Developments Ltd, and the stay principles in Wimbledon Construction Co 2000 Ltd v Vago. It upheld the decision on the payment notice, reversed it on the pay less notice, rejected the set-off defence, and refused a stay because of a parent company guarantee.
- The parties, the building contract and the adjudicator's decision
- The four defences advanced against enforcement
- The gateway for determining Part 8 points alongside enforcement
- Whether Hutton imposes a higher obviously wrong test
- Why the payment notice failed to set out the basis of calculation
- Why the pay less notice was not contaminated by the invalid payment notice
- The sum ultimately upheld
- The five earlier adjudications and the set-off defence
- The stay application and the insolvency starting position
- How the parent company guarantee displaced a stay