Chief Judge Muecke of the South Australian District Court has recently retired, but before doing so he heard the case of Fabtech v Exact. He handed down judgment last week as [2017] SADC 44.

In a sense, the case is routine under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 2009 (SA): a subcontractor – Fabtech – served a payment claim on the head contractor – Exact – but Exact failed to provide a payment schedule. And so the court gave summary judgment for the amount claimed. I was counsel for the successful subcontractor.

The interest in the case is in the side issues.

Intention

Exact’s initial position was to deny that the payment claim was a payment claim within the ambit of the Act. That position was abandoned before the court, but the denial had an effect: the court had in mind what Exact’s intentions were Continue reading →