Decision In Davenport Stuart-Smith J noted agreement with Grove regarding the “clear and unequivocal” statements that a defendant may only commence adjudication once they have paid any amounts previously determined (there’s that definitive statement that the Court omitted in Harding!). However, following the principles set out in Harding, he found that this did not mean that the Court would always restrain the commencement or progress of an adjudication. He gave no indication of when or why the Court might not restrain in such circumstances. This may well be because the issue before him was whether the award from the second adjudication could be used as a set-off or counterclaim. It was therefore being decided in similar circumstances to Harding (i.e. at the time of enforcement). Comment Overall, the principles of the HGCRA sit comfortably alongside the CCA; this is the well-established ‘pay now, argue later’ philosophy of both schemes. The adjudication provisions at s 108 of the HGCRA likewise correspond well with s 25 of the CCA. There is clear agreement throughout Harding, Grove, and Davenport that if a defendant has paid an amount previously ordered they will be entitled to launch an adjudication on the merits and rely on it. There is also agreement throughout that a defendant who has not paid any amounts previously ordered will not be entitled to rely on any subsequent adjudication determinations in their favour. This is consistent with the principles of both the HGCRA and CCA schemes. It seems that where Stuart-Smith J referred to the “latent ambiguity” in Harding regarding the critical time at which a defendant is restrained, it was his intention that his decision would remedy this. Notwithstanding that, it is strongly arguable that Grove resolved the ambiguity and in reality there was no need for Stuart-Smith J to go further. Whilst Grove did not expressly disagree with Harding, the Court in Grove stated that the defendants in Harding paid the amount due before commencing the subsequent adjudication. This was a clear error of fact, as the defendants had not paid before commencing the subsequent adjudication (but had paid before the plaintiff sought to enforce the first determination). Based on the Court’s reading in Grove, the defendants in Harding would have been compliant with the new principle set out in Grove. As such, the Court would not have seen any ambiguity which needed to be resolved. In any case, Grove clearly prevents a defendant from commencing an adjudication on the merits before paying the amounts determined to be owed on a prior default liability adjudication. This impliedly removed any ambiguity present in Harding; a defendant is unable to commence a further adjudication on the merits as the result of failing to pay an amount determined in an earlier default liability adjudication. As a matter of logic, they must therefore be prevented from relying on a merits-based adjudication determination at the enforcement stage given the jurisdictional bar in the first place. As a result, the principle expounded in Davenport appears to be something of a nonsense. It seems inevitable that this issue will come before the English Court of Appeal again (whether on appeal from this decision or another) given the ambiguity that Davenport potentially creates. At that stage it would be expected that the Court of Appeal will clarify any ambiguity that arises from the three decisions. In the meantime, however, claimants should heed the point that the Courts are all in symphony on; if you want to commence an adjudication on the merits you will need to have paid any sums determined to be payable in a prior default liability adjudication. Failure to do so will likely expose the claimant to a