Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
When a party decides to seek adjudication of a dispute under a construction contract, the
first stage is to send a notice of adjudication to the other party, and the next, or sometimes
concurrent,stageistoappointanadjudicator.Theadjudicatormaybenamedinthecontract,
or the contract may state the name of the body which is to nominate the adjudicator. Under
theSchemeforConstructionContracts(EnglandandWales)Regulations1998,ifnonomin-
ating body is chosen, the referring party may chose any nominating body. Most nominating
bodies have their own form which must be filled in and submitted together with a fee, after
whichthebodychoosesanadjudicatorfromtheonesontheirlistandnominatesthatperson.
Often, a referring party will notify the nominating body of persons they do not wish to see
nominated, and it is rare that a nominating body will ignore such objections - it is easier
to nominate someone to whom neither party has raised early objections. A referring party
will sometimes ask the nominating body to nominate an adjudicator with particular qualit-
ies, such as legal expertise or experience in costing or design, or one who has been engaged
on an earlier adjudication on the same project. What is unusual is for a party to suggest the
name of an adjudicator to the nominating body.
cided that the adjudicator should be legally qualified. They discovered that someone they
considered to be suitable was on the panel of adjudicators of the RIBA, and having ascer-
tained that he was available, they suggested to the RIBA that he should be nominated. The
RIBA did so, and in due course the adjudicator accepted the appointment and proceeded to
make a decision. Camden argued that the decision was void because the adjudicator had not
beenproperlyappointed.Camdencontendedthattherewasanimpliedtermtotheeffectthat
neitherpartyshouldtrytounilaterallyinfluencethenominatingbodywhenchoosingthead-
judicator.Thiscontentionwasrejectedbythecourt,whichheldthattheRIBAwaswellable
to decide whether to take notice of representations, and there may well be times when rep-
resentations were helpful.
Therefore,itseemsthatalthoughthereisnothingtostopareferringpartyfromsuggesting
the name of an adjudicator, it will be relatively rare to do so.
