GAME ON FUN PARK (SOUTHERN) SDN BHD v BOND M&E SDN BHD

Case Significance

Illustrates that under CIPAA an adjudication decision will be enforced under section 28 unless set aside under section 15, and that a stay under section 16 is unavailable once the setting-aside challenge fails.

This High Court (Construction Court) decision concerns the interaction between two remedies under the Construction Industry Payment and Adjudication Act 2012 ("Akta Pembayaran dan Adjudikasi Industri Pembinaan 2012", or CIPAA): an application to set aside an adjudication decision and to stay it under sections 15 and 16, and a cross-application to enforce that same decision under section 28. Game On Funpark (Southern) Sdn Bhd, the losing party in an adjudication conducted before the appointed adjudicator, sought to set aside the adjudication decision dated 21 November 2024 on the ground that the adjudicator had breached natural justice, and to stay the decision pending that challenge. Bond M&E Sdn Bhd, the successful claimant, applied separately under section 28 to enforce the adjudicated sum as if it were a judgment of the High Court. The court examined whether any clear error or denial of natural justice tainted the adjudication decision such that it should be set aside under section 15, and, if not, whether a stay under section 16 could nonetheless be granted. Relying on the Federal Court's ruling in Econpile (M) Sdn Bhd v ASM Development (KL) Sdn Bhd, the court reiterated that a stay is not available where the adjudication decision has not been set aside. Finding no clear error in the decision, the court dismissed the setting-aside and stay application with costs of RM10,000.00, and, holding that there were no further impediments, granted enforcement of the adjudication decision under section 28(1) and (2) with costs of RM5,000.00. The judgment is a useful illustration of how the construction courts treat the CIPAA "pay first, argue later" policy, refusing to disturb an adjudicator's decision absent a clear jurisdictional error or natural-justice breach, and treating enforcement as the ordinary consequence once a challenge fails. The setting-aside application and the enforcement application were heard together, allowing the court to dispose of the challenge to the adjudication decision and its enforcement in a single set of grounds and to keep the CIPAA process moving to a prompt, cash-flow-driven conclusion.