Who can, and cannot, refer a construction dispute to adjudication?

• 14 April 2026
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In a couple of cases from the first quarter of this year, the TCC handed down judgments providing guidance on the range of parties to which adjudication would be available: 

1. In Paragon Group Ltd v FK Facades Ltd [2026] EWHC 78 (TCC), the HHJ Stephen Davies held that an entity to which the employer had assigned the benefit of the building contract was entitled to refer a dispute to adjudication; and
2. In Darchem Engineering Ltd v Bouygues Travaux Publics and another [2026] EWHC 220 (TCC), Mr Justice Constable held that a constituent partner of an unincorporated joint venture (“JV”) was not entitled to refer a dispute to adjudication on its own, without the other partner(s) of the JV also being involved. 

While each case turned on the interpretation of “Party” under the relevant contracts (and the Scheme for Construction Contracts) in the context of those particular contracts, they nevertheless provide a useful practical indication of the circumstances in which an assignee or a lone JV partner will be able to adjudicate. Further, the terms in question are fairly common and so, in the many instances where the terms used are similar or the same as in these cases, contracting parties can look to the cases to understand whether they might have the right to adjudicate.

Assignees

In Paragon v FK Facades, it was held that, while the contract defined “Party” as “either the Employer or the Contractor“, that must be considered in the context of a clause of the contract that expressly permitted the employer to assign the contract. Given that clause, and the assumed knowledge of the general law of contract and assignment, the judge held that: 

1. the contract could be read as if the words “or any legal assignee of such party, where applicable” are included in the definition of “Party”; and
2. the same words could also be read into the definition of “party” in the Scheme without doing violence to the wording of the Scheme.

As such, the assignee was considered a “Party” that could refer a dispute to adjudication. 

It should be noted that the judge confessed to finding the point finely balanced, and permission to appeal has been granted. As such, it is possible that the Court of Appeal will reverse or refine the position. 

Indeed, while Abbey Healthcare (Mill Hill) Ltd v Augusta 2008 LLP (formerly Simply Construct (UK) LLP) [2024] UKSC 23 was not considered by the TCC, it perhaps bears note that the Supreme Court found in that case that a collateral warranty was not a construction contract under the HGCRA 1996 such that a beneficiary of such a warranty did not have the right to statutory adjudication. The Supreme Court’s view was that the improvement of cashflow (which it saw as the main purpose of the HGCRA 1996), would not be furthered by HGCRA 1996’s application to collateral warranties. There are similarities between beneficiaries and assignees in that both receive the benefit of obligations owed pursuant to an underlying building contract, and the Supreme Court’s view regarding cashflow is equally applicable to assignees of the employer’s benefits, which might point to a reversal of the first instance decision in Paragon v FK Facades.

Nevertheless, the position will be as stated by the TCC at first instance until any judgment is given on appeal. 

JV partners

Conversely to the finding in Paragon v FK Facades, where the interpretation of “Party” allowed adjudication, in Darchem Engineering Ltd v Bouygues Travaux Publics the meaning of “Party” was interpreted in a way that meant adjudication was not available to the referring party, Darchem.

It was held that the meaning of “Party” in the subcontract was such that an individual partner in an unincorporated JV was not a “Party” to the subcontract that could bring adjudication proceedings. That was despite the subcontract stating that the companies comprising the contractor and subcontractor JVs were, respectively, acting jointly and severally as the contractor and subcontractor. The court considered that the subcontract was drafted “in a manner objectively consistent with the Subcontract being bilateral, with two parties”, not multilateral with all constituent parties of the JVs. That included the “numerous references in the context of the ‘Parties’ to ‘either’ and ‘both’ and ‘the other’” which is “language consistent with there being only two parties”. Further, where provisions were intended to refer to a constituent partner of the JV, distinct drafting was used to specify that. 

Accordingly, the adjudicator did not have jurisdiction, and Darchem’s £24m award could not be enforced. 

Conclusion

So, whereas an assignee of a contract on the same or similar terms to those in Paragon v FK Facades can adjudicate alone and does not need to join the assignor to the adjudication proceedings, if the contract is drafted in the same or similar way as that in Darchem v Bouygues, a constituent partner of an unincorporated JV will need to be joined in the adjudication by all other partners of the unincorporated JV. That said, it would be possible to draft the contract in a way that does permit a singly JV partner to bring adjudication.

As such, an assignee of the employer’s rights will have the potential benefits of adjudication that a single JV partner (or collateral warranty beneficiary) will not, namely potentially being able to ‘ambush’ a responding party, and having their dispute decided in adjudication (at lower cost over the course of weeks), rather than in litigation (at a higher cost over the course of months or even years).