UK court refuses to force Octavius to pay £416,000 award for lifts built without a signed subcontract

Serapid spent about five months making lifts for a Network Rail step-free access job at Chalkwell, where Octavius was main contractor, Construction News reported. The firms signed a design subcontract in August 2024 and spent 2025 negotiating a second one, on NEC3 terms, for manufacture and installation. Serapid priced that work at £872,175 in February 2025 and started procurement on 3 June. On 16 June an Octavius senior project manager emailed that he believed the legal and commercial points were settled and that the subcontract order would be issued within the week. Nobody ever signed it.

In October 2025 Serapid raised its quote to £1.065m. Then, on 7 November, after Network Rail switched to a different lift technology, Octavius told Serapid the lifts were no longer needed and that it had no contract with Serapid covering them. Serapid claimed £667,526 in adjudication. Adjudicator Wayne Lord found a contract had formed around 6 June and awarded £416,499 before VAT, plus £29,250 in fees. Octavius paid the fees and refused the rest.

On 22 October Mr Justice Moody turned down Serapid's request for summary judgment. He cited emails that still anticipated a signed subcontract, the reopened price, a draft meant to be executed as a deed and Serapid's own internal plan approving manufacturing work before it had a contract, according to Construction News and Solicitors Journal. Starting procurement did not prove a deal, he found. He also refused to weigh a fallback argument that the firms had an oral contract, because Serapid had not raised it in the adjudication.

The ruling only blocks fast-track enforcement. Whether a contract existed, and what Serapid is owed, is still undecided. The case is Serapid Ltd v Octavius Infrastructure Ltd [2026] EWHC 2695 (TCC).