Given the nature of adjudications a party's input is of the upmost importance. Taking things back to basics, the party is the entity with all of the factual knowledge of what happened during a project and as such they play a central role in the adjudication process.
A party will require to:
- ingather all of the supporting documents in respect of their claim or defence;
- provide the factual information in support of the claim or defence;
- provide witness statements, if required;
- review the other party's written submissions;
- be on hand to assist in responding to any adjudicator's queries;
- review and sign off on written submissions;
- attend any hearings; and
- review the decision.
It should not be underestimated how much management time a party requires to spend on an adjudication. Parties should ensure that they have adequate resource for the adjudication as those individuals involved in the adjudication are unlikely to have much time to focus on other parts of the business.
Next week we will look at issues surrounding new evidence being raised late in the adjudication process. If you haven’t read our previous adjudication blogs they can be found here. Our commonly used terms glossary for adjudication can be found in our week two blog.
Should you require any assistance with adjudication, we have a large and experienced construction team who regularly deal with adjudications and we would be happy to discuss the process with you.
