JUDGMENT

Wong Kian Kheong JCA:

A. Introduction

[1] This judgment discusses, among others, the following matters:

(1) whether a conditional payment clause in a construction contract is invalid in court and arbitral proceedings (court/Arbitral Proceedings) pursuant to s 35(1) and (2)(a) of the Construction Industry Payment and Adjudication Act 2012 (CIPAA) when no adjudication proceedings have been commenced under CIPAA (Adjudication Proceedings). There are conflicting High court decisions on this question; and

(2) the legal and perhaps "undesirable" consequences of construction works which had been contracted to one party and the same works were then sub-contracted three times to three different parties.

[2] A draft of this judgment (Draft) had been previously forwarded to Hanipah binti Farikullah FCJ (who heard this appeal in the court of Appeal) and Azahari Kamal bin Ramli JCA. Both my learned sister and brother had expressed their concurrence with the Draft.

B. Background

[3] We shall refer to the parties as they were in the High court.

[4] The plaintiff company (Plaintiff) had filed this suit (This Suit) against the following five defendants (Defendants):

(1) the 1st defendant company (