It can be disconcerting to find, towards the beginning of the report of a decision in the Supreme Court, something like this:
Don’t despair. The point at issue in the August 3 case of MT Hojgaard AS v EON Climate and Renewables UK Robin Rigg East Ltd [2017] UKSC 59 was actually quite straightforward.
Problems appeared in a wind-farm off the Cumbrian coast, which were traceable to weaknesses in the foundations. The owners, E-ON, sued the constructor, Hojgaard, for breach of contract. In particular they relied on a warranty that the structure had been built to last for 20 years. There was some doubt over the meaning of the warranty (did it mean the thing would last 20 years, as the parties thought, or that its design was such that it ought to do so, as Lord Neuberger opined?); but the point didn’t matter, since here the collapse took place only a very short time after the whole caboodle had been built in the first place.
The claim thus looked straightforward, but here a difficulty arose. Like all major construction projects, the constructor had to observe detailed specifications. In this case the specification was named J101 (a technical specification prepared by acknowledged experts DNV — don’t ask further), which not only embodied the fearsome formula above, but which turned out to have a major defect in it. And the problems were due to this defect. Hojgaard argued that E-ON could hardly complain where Hojgaard had merely followed instructions: E-ON riposted that that was all very well, but a warranty was a warranty, and this one had been broken.
The Supreme Court confirmed what construction lawyers had always assumed was the case (see decisions such as Cammell Laird v Manganese Bronze [1934] AC 402 and Steel Co of Canada v Willand Management [1966] SCR 746): namely, that the warranty continued to apply even though in a sense inconsistent with the specification and thus impossible to satisfy. And, in the view of us at Maricom, rightly so. If a sophisticated business chooses to promise that something will happen come hell or high water, the fact that it turns out to have promised the impossible should not let it off the hook: that’s what warranties are all about.
The case is not of earth-shattering significance. DNV smartly changed its specifications in late 2009, so the particular issue here won’t affect wind-farm contracts signed after that date. As for the future, lawyers for constructors would do well to advise them to change their wording, making it clear that in so far as customers order structures to a particular specification, any warranties are qualified so as to prevent those customers both eating their cake and having it. If lawyers don’t do this, their PI insurers can expect some embarrassed phone calls; if construction companies don’t follow any such advice then that’s their look-out. But the decision in the Hojgaard case could still have some ramifications in respect of some older structures; to that extent at least it’s worth filing away a note.
