Adjudicator's award enforced in TCC because contractor's evidence for Part 8 claim did not stack up
United Utilities Water Limited v Northstone (NI) Limited (trading as Farrans Construction) [2026] EWHC 1057 (TCC) Her Honour Judge Kelly
Summary judgment was granted enforcing an adjudication award in favour of a water undertaker against a civil engineering contractor under NEC3. The contractor's challenges to the validity of the payment notice under Part 8 proceedings failed because it had not adduced sufficient evidence to enable the court to assess how a reasonable recipient would have understood the notice.
On 6 May 2026 this judgment was handed down from the TCC in Leeds.
In the application for enforcement of an adjudicator’s award in favour of United Utilities for the sum of £3.3.m Farrans raise some Part 8 claims where the declarations sought would have defeated the summary enforcement of the adjudicator's decision.
Her Honour Judge Kelly decided that the matters in the Part 8 claims were unable to be decided because “the evidence does not permit the court to determine how a reasonable recipient would have understood the notices.”
“The evidence provided by Farrans is insufficient to enable the court to determine how the relevant notices were received against the background of the knowledge of the actual parties.”
Quoting Lord Wilberforce “No contracts are made in a vacuum; there is always a setting in which they have to be placed.”
As a result of there being insufficient evidence to decide whether the notices were contractually compliant there was no requirement for the court to consider further if Farrans should have served a counter notice stating it intends to ‘pay less’.
