Eversendai Constructions (M) Sdn. Bhd. v Samsung C&T Corporation UEM Construction JV Sdn. Bhd.

Case Significance

Illustrates that enforcement of an adjudication decision under section 28 of CIPAA follows as the ordinary consequence once a setting-aside challenge fails and no stay is warranted, giving effect to the Act's temporary-finality policy.

This High Court (Construction Court) decision concerns an application to enforce an adjudication decision under section 28 of the Construction Industry Payment and Adjudication Act 2012 (CIPAA), heard together with the losing party's applications to set aside and to stay the same decision. In this Originating Summons the successful contractor sought to enforce the adjudication decision, given in its favour, as if it were a judgment or order of the High Court. Section 28 of CIPAA provides the statutory route by which an adjudicated sum is enforced, reflecting the Act's policy of temporary finality — the adjudication decision binds the parties and is to be honoured unless and until it is set aside under section 15, stayed under section 16, or overtaken by the final resolution of the dispute in arbitration or litigation. Because the paying party's setting-aside application disclosed no excess of jurisdiction or breach of natural justice, and its stay application failed for want of special circumstances where the successful party was found financially sound, there remained no impediment to enforcement. The court accordingly dismissed the setting-aside and stay applications with costs and granted enforcement, making an order in terms of the relevant prayers of the enforcement summons. The judgment illustrates that once a challenge to a CIPAA adjudication decision fails and no stay is warranted, enforcement under section 28 follows as the ordinary consequence, giving effect to the "pay first, argue later" scheme so that cash flow in the construction industry is maintained pending final determination of the underlying dispute. The court also observed that the three summonses were properly heard together, since the setting-aside, stay and enforcement applications all turned on the same adjudication decision and the same body of evidence, allowing a single set of grounds to dispose of the whole dispute. It made an order in terms of the operative prayers of the enforcement summons, so that the adjudicated sum became enforceable as a court order while the parties remained free to litigate the merits to finality in the pending arbitration.