WNA Construction Pty Ltd v Canberra Building and Maintenance Pty Ltd

WNA Construction Pty Ltd appealed a decision of the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal concerning a payment claim made by Canberra Building and Maintenance Pty Ltd under the *Building and Construction Industry (Security of Payment) Act 2009* (ACT). The central dispute revolved around whether the payment claim had been validly "given" to WNA Construction, as required by the Act, and whether the claim itself was sufficiently specific.

The primary legal issues before the Court of Appeal were: (1) whether the payment claim was duly served on WNA Construction, given that it was sent to a new email address that shared the same domain name as previously used addresses; and (2) whether the payment claim met the statutory requirement of being sufficiently specific in identifying the work to which it related.

The Court of Appeal upheld the Tribunal's finding that the payment claim had been validly given. It reasoned that sending the claim to an email address with the same domain name as previously used, without any indication that it was invalid, was sufficient. The Court drew a *Jones v Dunkel* inference against WNA Construction for failing to adduce evidence that the new email address was not a valid or monitored address, which would have been readily available to them. Furthermore, the Court found that the payment claim was sufficiently specific, noting that the specificity requirement under the Act is not overly demanding and that the claim provided a reasonable identification of the work performed. Consequently, the appeal was dismissed.