The recent NSW Court of Appeal decision in Reward Interiors Pty Ltd t/as Reward Group v Tackelly No 8 Pty Ltd atf Tackelly No 8 Trust [2026] NSWCA 133 provides a timely reminder that Security of Payment legislation is unforgiving when it comes to deadlines and service requirements.
The dispute arose under Western Australia’s Security of Payment legislation after a party attempted to serve a review adjudication application by email using a hyperlink to a Mimecast document repository rather than attaching the application itself. The Western Australian regime allows for a senior adjudicator to review an adjudication decision, where a party in making the review application “must give” a copy of the application and any accompanying documents to the other side “within 1 business day” after the application is made.
The Court of Appeal found that the statutory one-business-day service requirement was jurisdictional. Critically, the majority also found that sending an email containing a link to an electronic repository did not amount to “giving” the document by email under the relevant legislation.
The lesson?
Do not assume that sending a Dropbox, SharePoint, Mimecast or other file-sharing link is the same as serving the document itself.
Security of Payment regimes operate under extremely tight statutory timeframes. A failure to comply with a service requirement can have consequences that cannot simply be fixed later.
Before serving a payment claim, payment schedule, adjudication application or related document, parties should check:
• exactly when the document must be served;
• the permitted methods of service under the legislation and contract;
• the correct recipient and address for service; and
• whether attachments, rather than repository links, are required.
The decision concerned Western Australian legislation, but the practical warning extends well beyond WA. In NSW, the contract itself can also be critical to determining whether service through an online platform is effective.
When it comes to Security of Payment, timing and service are not administrative details. They can determine whether a claim survives at all.