Specialists International
This Knowledge Check tests your understanding of the decision of the Technology and Construction Court in Clerkenwell Lifestyle (UK) Limited v HG Construction Limited [2026] EWHC 1406 (TCC). The court heard a Part 7 application to enforce an adjudicator's decision alongside a Part 8 claim in which the paying party sought declarations that the decision was unenforceable and that the parties had reached a binding agreement revising the completion dates. The judgment matters to anyone running or resisting adjudication enforcement, because it works through when a defence has been raised, when a natural justice challenge succeeds, and when an exchange of emails amounts to a binding contract.
The dispute arose from a project in Clerkenwell, London, comprising a 153 room hotel and 9 affordable apartments, carried out under an amended JCT Design and Build Contract 2016 of 22 December 2021, Clerkenwell being the employer and HG the contractor. After extensions of time and the withholding of liquidated damages, Clerkenwell referred a dispute to adjudication and the adjudicator fixed revised completion dates by adding the critical delay he found to the original contractual dates, ordering HG to pay GBP 955,943.43. HG resisted enforcement, contending that emails of 8 February 2023 had created a binding agreement revising the completion dates that the adjudicator had failed to take into account. Mrs Justice Jefford heard the matter on 7 May 2026 and handed down judgment on 12 June 2026.
The court applied the natural justice principles in Pilon Ltd v Breyer Group plc, KNN Colburn LLP v GD City Holdings Ltd and Global Switch Estates 1 Ltd v Sudlows Ltd, together with Cantillon Ltd v Urvasco Ltd. It held that the alleged binding agreement defence had never been put forward in the adjudication, so natural justice had not been breached, and that no binding contract had in fact been made on 8 February 2023. Summary judgment was granted to enforce the decision and the Part 8 declarations were refused.
- The combined Part 7 enforcement and Part 8 declaration proceedings
- The hotel and residential project and the amended JCT Design and Build contract
- The extensions of time, the liquidated damages and the adjudication
- The adjudicator's decision and the sum enforced
- HG's binding agreement case and the natural justice challenge
- The Pilon principles on failing to address a defence
- A responding party's right to raise a defence, and the limits of the adjudicator's duty
- Whether the binding agreement defence had been raised in the Response
- Why there was no binding agreement on 8 February 2023
- The authority of the Employer's Agent and the final outcome