- Gotch v Enelco Ltd [1 July 2015]
The court gave guidance on the appropriate conduct of litigation in the Technology and Construction Court, in particular with regard to conducting litigation in a proportionate manner so as to keep costs to the minimum.
- Woods Building Services v Milton Keynes Council [14 July 2015]
A local authority had breached the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 by making manifest errors in its evaluation of two tenders, and by breaching the duties of transparency and equal treatment. Some of the scores it had awarded for the tenders were incapable of rational explanation.
- Portsmouth City Council v Ensign Highways Ltd [14 July 2015]
The court construed a Private Finance Initiative contract between a local authority and a service provider. It focused particularly on the extent of the local authority’s duty to act in good faith when dealing with breaches by the service provider and when discharging its best value duty
- Amec Foster Wheeler Group Ltd v Morgan Sindall Professional Services Ltd [14 July 2015]
A contractor which had sold its business after entering into the contract was entitled to see documents in arbitration proceedings in which the buyer of its business was involved, and which gave rise to a risk of liability on the part of the contractor. The buyer of the business was obliged under the terms of an agency agreement to produce documents relating to the affairs of its principal, and the principal was entitled to be informed of its contractual rights and duties in relation to third parties.
- Promet Technology Ltd v Imperial Cash and Carry [17 July 2015]
A company’s repeated denial of an underlying contract had been sufficient to reserve a challenge to an adjudicator’s jurisdiction to hear a dispute arising from that contract, notwithstanding the absence of an express reservation. The agreement to participate in the adjudication in the circumstances was consistent with such a reservation
- Tideland Ltd v Westminster City Council ’23 July 2015]
Default judgment in respect of a claim by a freehold owner against a local authority for structural damage caused by overgrown tree roots was set aside where, although the local authority had failed to acknowledge all correspondence, it had acted promptly in seeking to set aside judgment, and the question of liability could be dealt with during an existing four-day hearing to determine damages.
- Woods Building Services v Milton Keynes Council [24 July 2015]
Following a decision that a local authority tender process had been fundamentally flawed, it would be inappropriate to order the local authority to enter into a contract with the party that should have won. The appropriate remedy was damages to be assessed after the tender process had been re-run.
- GSK Project Management Ltd (In Liquidation) v QPR Holdings Ltd [29 July 2015]
Regarding costs budgets at a CMC.
- Wycombe Demolition Ltd v Topevent Ltd [31 July 2015]
Summary judgment was awarded in a contractor’s application for the enforcement of an adjudicator’s award where the adjudicator had not exceeded his jurisdiction by deciding multiple issues. There had been a clear and obvious link between an allegation of wrongful termination of contract and the overall claim for all sums outstanding.
- Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation v Healthcare Support (Newcastle) Ltd [4 August 2015]
An NHS trust’s application for a mandatory injunction to permit it to enter an office building being refurbished, so that it could carry out ambient temperature monitoring and testing, did not fail at the threshold as the court could not be satisfied to a high degree of assurance that it did not have a contractual right to do so.
- Henia Investments Inc v Beck Interiors Ltd [14 August 2015]
The failure of a contract administrator to issue an interim certificate on time, leading to the sum due for that period being effectively deemed to be that applied for by the building contractor, had spawned a large amount of litigation. The statutory requirements of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 as amended, which were not excludable under a contract’s terms, had led to unnecessarily complex contractual provisions, as in the instant case.
- Energy Solutions EU Ltd v Nuclear Decommissioning Authority [14 August 2015]
The Court refused to grant disclosure of documents where the documents sought were unlikely to be relevant and were subject to legal professional privilege.