AN attempt to throw out the £73 million court action by Greater Glasgow’s health board against the construction team that built the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital has failed in the Court of Session.

In an action which began in January last year, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is suing Multiplex Construction Europe Limited, performance guarantor BPY Holdings, project supervisors Capita Property and Infrastructure Ltd and lead consultant Currie and Brown UK.

The hospital was officially opened by the Queen in 2015. It cost more than £840m to build but has since been plagued by problems including the deaths of four patients, three of them children, which are now the subject of a police investigation.

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The Scottish Hospitals Inquiry is also looking into complaints against the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital as well as the ongoing problems with the building.

At issue in the court action are the claimed multiple defects in the hospital building, including alleged faults with the water system, wards ventilation, plants and building services capacity, toughened glazing, doors, the heating system, the atrium roof, internal fabric moisture ingress and the pneumatic transport system.

According to the judgement issued on Friday by Lord Tyre, one of the main elements of the case is that the initial contracts contained clauses allowing for adjudication over any complaints about defects.

Lord Tyre wrote that the lawyers for the health board argued that the dispute in the present action “was not one that the respective parties had intended would be referred for adjudication. The limitations of adjudication were well known”.

He continued: “Only one dispute could be referred for adjudication at a time. There could not be a multiplicity of parties to an adjudication. It had been foreseeable at the time of contracting that this project would give rise to multiple disputes arising at a late stage, when the advantages of adjudication would be absent.

“There could in theory be as many as 22 adjudications here, with no possibility of consideration of joint and several liability and a risk of mutually inconsistent decisions.”

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Lawyers for the defenders argued that it was no bar to adjudication that a dispute arose after the works had been completed – and that “at any time” meant what it said. Nor was a dispute excluded from adjudication because it was complex.

Lawyers for Multiplex, Capita and Currie & Brown told the court that “the present action is incompetent and should be dismissed”.

In his judgment, Lord Tyre found for the health board and refused to dismiss the action. Instead, he sisted – suspended – the case until after the adjudication process, adding: “That is the usual course and I see no reason to depart from it.”

No date has been set for any further court appearances by either party.