A refusal to consider a claim or answer it constitutes a dispute. Only yellow bananas can be waved at a referee. First, the parties can expressly empower the referee to decide if a dispute has indeed arisen. Alternatively, a party could scurry along to a court or arbitrator to seek a declaration of no dispute and therefore no jurisdiction. The Technology and Construction Court will do this within days.
Arbitrators are the same.
Alternatively, the challenging party can play adjudicators while making it clear it thinks the referee has no jurisdiction, then argue at enforcement stage - which is what Morrison did. Oh, the banana had gone yellow. It was a ripened dispute. Indeed, it had already ripened by the first adjudication, but that one was limited to other matters. Fastrack waited for that one to finish, then came again with the other disputes.