Mr McDermott contended that the adjudicator had failed to exhaust his jurisdiction
by failing to consider and make a finding on the defence that the appendix had not
formed part of the IPA, with the result that there was no proper specification given
of the sums claimed in the IPA. The adjudicator had noted in the decision that Mr
McDermott had argued that AGB had not provided a basis for the calculation of the
sum claimed but had not noted the specific ground was the absence of the
appendix.
After reviewing the law as to the principles on which the court would approach an
application to enforce an award, the court noted an adjudicator could not rely on a
general assertion that s/he had considered all submissions and documents. There
must be some effort to address the lines of defence advanced and to explain the
basis upon which they were accepted or rejected, failing which the decision would
be unenforceable.
Mr McDermott contended that the only questions the adjudicator had directly
addressed were (a) whether an earlier document could be incorporated by
reference in an IPA and (b) whether the letter and appendix in question provided
sufficient detail. AGB said it was clear from the terms of the decision that the
question had been adequately addressed. They also argued that the decision
should be enforced unless there was a failure to exhaust jurisdiction in a material
respect and the court should intervene only in the plainest of cases.
The court quoted a number of paragraphs from the decision, which could only be
read as deciding that the letter and appendix had been included in the IPA (at least
in the earlier application to the quantity surveyor). Whether that could be criticised
as an ill-founded conclusion in law or fact was of no consequence. The appendix
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