What are the legal guidelines that an adjudicator has to stay within? This frequently asked question just became a little bit clearer thanks to a recent case in the Scottish courts
There is an angle in this Scottish case, Curot Contracts vs Castle Inns (Stirling), that is worth thinking about. It was an adjudicator鈥檚 award that ordered Castle to pay Curot the hefty sum of 拢444k plus VAT. There had been a row about the amount certified in an interim account. It was too low, said the adjudicator. His ruling was binding immediately. Castle was supposed to stump up. But Castle had a quarrel. It took the view that the adjudicator had taken a wrong turn; so, said Castle, the award should fall away. Its reason was 鈥渁 failure by the adjudicator to understand the law鈥�. That鈥檚 what it told the Scottish Court of Session when Curot tried to enforce the award.
Now then, it has long since been true that if the adjudicator accepts an argument about the law that is wrong, then hard luck: the parties are bound by his wrong choice. It鈥檚 the same with facts: if the adjudicator accepts one party鈥檚 evidence and thereby arrives at a fact, that鈥檚 that. You can see that 鈥渇ailure to understand the law鈥� has all the makings of a non-starter.
Ah, but there is more. The gloss on the headline was: 鈥淣ot just that the adjudicator had erred in law, but that he had effectively ignored the contract and decided the case on the basis of what he perceived to be just and reasonabl