Damansara Realty (Johor) Sdn Bhd v Perbadanan Putrajaya

Case Significance

Illustrates how the CIPAA mechanisms of setting aside (section 15), staying (section 16) and enforcement (section 28) interlock: an adjudication decision that survived challenge was enforced as a judgment of the High Court.

This High Court decision in the Construction Court at Kuala Lumpur concerns an application to enforce an adjudication decision made under the Construction Industry Payment and Adjudication Act 2012 (CIPAA), heard together with the paying party's applications to set aside and to stay the same decision. Following an adjudication decision dated 10 January 2025 in its favour, the contractor, Damansara Realty (Johor) Sdn Bhd, applied under section 28 of CIPAA to enforce the decision against Perbadanan Putrajaya, section 28 permitting a party to enforce an adjudication decision as if it were a judgment or order of the High Court where the adjudicated sum has not been paid. The court considered the enforcement application alongside the employer's application under section 15 to set aside the decision and its application under section 16 to stay it. Consistently with the scheme of CIPAA, an adjudication decision is binding and enforceable unless and until it is set aside, stayed, or the dispute is finally resolved by arbitration or the court, so that enforcement ordinarily follows where no ground to set aside or stay is established. Having dismissed both the set-aside application under section 15 and the stay application under section 16, the court granted the contractor's enforcement application, ordering that the adjudicated sum be paid in the terms of the prayers sought. The judgment is a useful illustration of how the three CIPAA mechanisms, setting aside under section 15, staying under section 16 and enforcement under section 28, interlock, and of the enforceability of an adjudication decision that survives challenge. The court's reasoning shows the enforcement mechanism working as intended: once the challenges to the decision fell away, there was no obstacle to treating the adjudicated sum as immediately payable. The judgment thereby vindicates the cash-flow purpose of the statute, under which a contractor who has obtained an adjudication decision in its favour should not be kept out of its money by unmeritorious resistance.