The High Court has refused a contractor’s application to lift a stay on an adjudication over a payment claim arising from electrical works at Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
Mr Justice Barr ruled that the stay would remain in place until the final determination of judicial review proceedings brought by Kevin O’Donovan and the Cork County Committee of the GAA. The proceedings challenge whether the adjudicator has jurisdiction to hear the dispute. The judgment did not determine that underlying issue.
OCS One Complete Solution Limited referred a payment dispute concerning containment works, claiming approximately €1 million under the Construction Contracts Act 2013. The company had carried out electrical works on the stadium redevelopment and a centre of excellence at Monaghan Road, Ballintemple, Cork.
The applicants argue that most of the relevant work arose under a Letter of Intent signed on 10 June 2016, before the Act’s adjudication provisions came into force on 25 July 2016. OCS relies on a formal contract signed on 12 May 2017, which said it superseded earlier agreements, including any Letter of Intent. The adjudicator had stated in written views that he had jurisdiction. The applicants then withdrew from the adjudication and obtained leave for judicial review and a stay on 19 November 2020.
OCS asked the court to lift the stay, arguing that the statutory timetable could expire and deprive it of adjudication. The applicants offered to consent to the process resuming if their jurisdiction challenge failed. They also pointed to an arbitration concerning the final account, which included the claim at issue, and said the adjudication had been sought more than three years after the works were completed.
The judge accepted that the court had to weigh the public interest in the statutory adjudication scheme against the circumstances of this dispute. He said the applicants’ offer meant the stay would defer OCS’s opportunity for adjudication for a number of months if the judicial review failed, rather than extinguish that opportunity. He also considered that any adjudication award would require High Court enforcement, where the jurisdiction issue could be raised, and that the applicants would be prejudiced if expected to participate while maintaining their jurisdiction challenge.
The judge found the applicants had a strong case for the purposes of the stay application, while stressing that he was not deciding the jurisdiction question. He said the challenge was substantial and bona fide, and that the interpretation of the 2017 contract remained for the substantive proceedings.
The court refused OCS’s application to lift the stay and re-imposed the original stay with immediate effect until the judicial review proceedings are determined. The parties may make written submissions on the costs of the stay application within 14 days of receiving the judgment.