An adjudicator decided that two parties had entered into an ad-hoc adjudication by dint of having paid his 鈥� rather hefty 鈥� fees upfront. But the TCC had other ideas
The adjudicator in this story is not the most popular bloke on the block. Immediately he was appointed to be the adjudicator he required the two parties to stump up a whopping size cheque to cover a guess about his eventual fee. Let me come back to that. Then the responding party said the adjudicator had no jurisdiction. The adjudicator then called for submissions about jurisdiction. In return he produced a beautifully crafted 41-page award, which was non-binding, mere observations about jurisdiction.
These observations had persuaded him that he had no jurisdiction. But he was also persuaded that because both sides had paid his invoice up front, then bingo he had now got authority to adjudicate. Also it meant that now there was a binding agreement by the parties to adjudicate. Hmmmm. He then said, let鈥檚 get on with it. The respondent would have none of it and said they were dropping out. In due course the adjudicator awarded the whole claim of about 拢200k to the referring party. At least someone was now smiling and so too the adjudicator because he has picked up his fees of 拢18,000.
The 鈥渟uccessful鈥� party wanted its 拢200k and the adjudicator鈥檚 fee to be paid by the other party. 鈥淪han鈥檛,鈥� they said. The High Court wa