TCC rules on payment notice validity in Netomnia v MJ Quinn fibre contract dispute

The Technology and Construction Court has ruled that an application for payment submitted by a telecoms contractor did not satisfy the requirements of its framework contract, reversing the outcome of an earlier adjudication and providing guidance on what information counts as reasonably required to verify invoices under construction payment legislation.

In Netomnia Limited v MJ Quinn Integrated Services Limited [2026] EWHC 1824 (TCC), Mr Justice Eyre determined a Part 8 claim brought by Netomnia, operator of a nationwide full-fibre broadband network, against MJ Quinn, the contractor engaged to install cabling and related infrastructure under a Master Services Agreement (MSA) dated April 2021.

The dispute centred on a single application for payment (AFP) worth £3,770.84, one of 168 similar applications MJ Quinn submitted on the same day totalling around £4.7 million. The AFP referenced only a work order number, omitting both a purchase order reference and the identifying codes, known as Polygon IDs and Feature IDs, used within Netomnia's systems to pinpoint specific locations and items of work across its network of more than 12,000 polygons and five million individual features. An adjudicator had earlier found the AFP valid and Netomnia's response to it out of time, awarding MJ Quinn the sum claimed plus interest. Netomnia brought these proceedings seeking a declaration that the adjudicator's decision was unenforceable and that the AFP itself had never validly triggered the statutory payment regime under section 110B(4) of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996.

Mr Justice Eyre held that, properly read in context, clause 6.5.4 of the MSA required MJ Quinn to supply the Polygon ID and Feature IDs, since without them Netomnia could not verify which specific works and locations the sums claimed related to, particularly given that most work orders covered multiple polygons and Netomnia had only a matter of days to respond before statutory deadlines for payment or pay less notices took effect. The judge rejected MJ Quinn's argument that referencing the work order alone sufficed simply because this particular work order happened to relate to a single polygon, noting that MJ Quinn had not even flagged that fact when submitting the AFP.

On the separate requirement under clause 6.5.5 to reference a corresponding purchase order, the judge rejected MJ Quinn's evidence, later corrected during proceedings, that purchase orders were only generated after work was completed. He found that the relevant purchase order had in fact been sent to a member of MJ Quinn's accounts team within days of the work order being signed, and that this satisfied the contractual requirement regardless of what she did with it afterwards. He also dismissed the argument that the purchase order did not correspond to the AFP simply because the claimed sums, covering indexation adjustments and permit costs, exceeded the amount originally stated in the purchase order, finding this outcome was inherent in the contract's indexation mechanism.

Having found both requirements engaged and unmet, the judge held there was no need to consider whether the Scheme for Construction Contracts would otherwise apply in place of the MSA's own payment mechanism. He also rejected MJ Quinn's alternative case that an estoppel by convention prevented Netomnia from relying on these deficiencies, finding no evidence of any established practice of accepting applications lacking all three references.

The judge noted that both parties had proceeded on the understanding that his conclusions would likely inform the approach to the remaining 167 applications submitted the same day, though he cautioned that he had not seen those applications and could not say how far his reasoning would transfer to each of them.