The Court held that s 55(4) of the Building and Construction Industry (Security of Payments) Act 2021 (WA) renders inadmissible in a s 15 CJEA suspension application evidence of things said or done in the course of an adjudication, where the party seeking suspension relies on that material to engage with the merits of the underlying dispute rather than to challenge the validity of the determination. The Court distinguished Cape Range, which permitted such evidence only in invalidity or enforcement proceedings, and aligned the suspension application with the statutory demand context in Grounded Construction. On the substantive question, the Court found that Monadelphous failed to establish special circumstances justifying suspension, as the admissible evidence did not demonstrate a risk that Aaro would be unable to repay the adjudicated sums — the financial evidence addressed only Aaro's capacity to satisfy the much larger estimated damages claim in the substantive action, not the smaller adjudicated amounts.
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