CPB Contractors Pty Limited v Heyday5 Pty Limited

CPB Contractors Pty Limited, the head contractor, brought an action against Heyday5 Pty Limited, the adjudicator, to enforce an adjudication determination in favour of a sub-contractor who had claimed payment for providing spotters for mobile elevated work platforms. The sub-contractor had been directed by CPB to provide the spotters as a variation to the building contract. The dispute was heard by the Supreme Court of New South Wales, which had to determine whether the adjudication determination was valid and enforceable.

The primary legal issues before the court were whether the adjudication determination disclosed no evident or intelligible justification for upholding the claim, and whether the adjudicator denied CPB procedural fairness by finding them on bases not the subject of submission duly made. The court had to consider the appropriate standard of review for an adjudication determination, and whether the determination should be examined with an overcritical or pedantic eye, or viewed with common sense and without undue legality.

The court held that the challenges to the adjudication determination were not made out. It recognised that adjudicators' determinations are not judgments of a court, and that the procedural behaviour of adjudicators and determinations should not be examined with an overcritical or pedantic eye but should be viewed with common sense and without undue legality. The court found that the determination was not so unreasonable as to justify setting it aside, and that there was an evident or intelligible justification for upholding the claim. The court also held that the adjudicator did not deny CPB procedural fairness, as the submissions made by CPB were sufficient to put Heyday5 on notice of the arguments that CPB intended to raise.

The court upheld the adjudication determination and ordered CPB to pay the sub-contractor the amount determined by the adjudicator, plus interest and costs.