The £40,000 fix

摘要

Over Christmas I did a trawl of 2007's crop of construction cases. One in particular caught my eye. The facts were straightforward but the decision was odd - to say the least. You may be pleased to hear that it has nothing to do with adjudication, or, indeed, with Wembley stadium. It was SWI vs P&I Data Services. In mid-2006 P&I was engaged by pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to carry out works at two sites in Stevenage, Hertfordshire. SWI was P&I's subcontractor for some of the works; it had submitted tenders for both sites for the sums of £97,800 and £239,443. The subcontract documentation consisted of SWI's tenders and purchase orders from P&I. SWI's prices related to work detailed on the issued tender drawings but there were no rates for individual items of work.