The court of appeal in carillion Construction Ltd vs Devonport Royal Dockyard Ltd said: 'The purpose of adjudication was and is to determine who shall hold the disputed funds until such time as the dispute is finally resolved." My Lord, that is wrong. The purpose of inventing 28-day adjudication in 1998 was to provide an efficient way of adjudicating a list of quarrels between A and B. Why? Because litigation was hopelessly inefficient. The Court of Appeal also said: 'The task of the adjudicator is to find an interim solution which meets the needs of the case." My Lord, it isn't. The task of the adjudicator is to adjudicate. He decides by asking if A puts a better case than B. If he does anything else, he acts quite improperly. There is more. The Court of Appeal approved the notion "that the adjudicator is not necessarily expected to arrive at a solution, which is correct".
展开▼
