Five High Court cases centring on StoTherm Classic cladding claims have been identified in court records, with stated remediation costs, pleaded claims and underlying judgment sums exceeding £100m in aggregate, figures that may help explain the £135.2m in unsecured claims reported against Sto Ltd by its administrators at Grant Thornton.
Sto Ltd, a cladding specialist, entered administration in January 2025. Construction News research, based on original court documents provided by litigation analytics firm Solomonic, identified five proceedings at the Technology and Construction Court in which Sto Ltd is named as a defendant. All five concern historic, project-specific installations or configurations of the StoTherm Classic system, including variants identified in the court papers as Classic K and Classic M, as well as adhesive-fixed and mechanically fixed systems. The cases do not concern or determine the safety of any system currently marketed by the Sto group.
The five StoTherm Classic cladding claims in detail
Lendlease Residential (CG) Ltd and Lendlease Residential (BH) Ltd lodged a £21.1m claim before Christmas 2024, covering five buildings: four at Clarence Dock in Leeds and one at Capricorn Place in Bristol, completed between 2003 and 2007. The Lendlease companies allege that Sto Ltd and its German parent, Sto SE & Co KGaA, made misleading claims about the performance of the historic systems and that those systems were inherently defective or failed to meet construction-product requirements. The allegations have not been determined, and no substantive defence had been lodged by an April deadline set by the court.
Companies in the Redrow group (HB (WM) Ltd, Redrow Homes Ltd and Redrow Ltd) filed a separate claim in December 2024 concerning StoTherm Classic installed at the Hemisphere development in Edgbaston, Birmingham, which completed around 2008. Remediation works were estimated to cost £27.3m, though the companies acknowledged that some of that work did not relate to the StoTherm Classic system and would be excluded from the final claim value.
Also in December 2024, Barratt Redrow, BDW Trading and Barratt London provisionally valued a claim at £47.6m, covering historic StoTherm Classic installations at five London residential developments completed between 2000 and 2006: Pierhead Lock, Tower 8 at Barrier Point, Tideslea Path, Switch House and Centreway Apartments. The claim documents describe several configurations, including Classic M and both adhesive-fixed and mechanically fixed systems.
All three of those proceedings also name Sto SE & Co KGaA and its ultimate parent, Stotmeister Beteiligungs GmbH, as defendants. In May, the High Court rejected the German defendants’ argument that the claims against them should not be heard in England and Wales, allowing those proceedings to continue. That ruling did not determine liability for the alleged defects or remediation costs.
Contractor Mulalley & Co brought two further cases. The first, filed in March 2024, concerns StoTherm Classic K installed on four tower blocks in Gosport, Hampshire between 2007 and 2008. Mulalley is seeking a contribution after an earlier judgment required it to pay £10.8m in damages, interest and costs to housing association Martlet Homes, and has asked the court to determine what share Sto Ltd should bear.
The second Mulalley case, filed in December 2024, centres on StoTherm Classic K installed during the 2007/08 refurbishment of Parkside Court, a residential tower block in Chelmsford. After Sto Ltd entered administration, Mulalley continued against Sto SE & Co KGaA. Sto SE did not defend the claim, and judgment was entered by default. In June, the High Court ordered Sto SE to pay Mulalley £1.77m plus interest under a building liability order, along with £175,000 towards Mulalley’s costs. Mr Justice Pepperall described the system at Parkside Court as an “unsafe external cladding system” and said the default liability established included that it was inherently defective and had made the apartments unfit to live in.
A fifth case was lodged by Watkin Jones & Son Ltd in 2025, after Sto Ltd had already entered administration. The court listing reviewed by Construction News did not disclose the claim value, project or product involved in that case.
Administration, moratorium and the path to liquidation
Administration moratorium rules prevent proceedings against Sto Ltd from continuing without the administrators’ consent or the court’s permission. In their latest progress report, Grant Thornton said they would “continue Sto Ltd’s defence to proceedings either intimated or commenced over historical cladding supplies… as far as they believe appropriate,” weighing the cost of continuing a defence against the potential detriment to creditors of abandoning it. Work undertaken during the latest reporting period consisted of reviewing Sto Ltd’s records for historical cladding information.
Grant Thornton reported receiving £135.15m in unsecured claims, noting that the figure is “largely made up of contingent claims that are in relation to the cladding claims” and that these “have not been adjudicated or confirmed as final claims in the administration.” The administrators said they expect some money to be available for unsecured creditors, but that the timing and value of any dividend remain unknown given the continuing legal proceedings. The administration is expected to convert into a creditors’ voluntary liquidation within six months, with any distribution made during that liquidation.
Sto SE & Co KGaA provided a statement: ‘Sto Ltd. always was a separate legal entity from Sto SE & Co. KGaA, and all decisions by the company were made by the former management of Sto Ltd. As to the Parkside Court case, we are aware of the ruling and are currently reviewing it.’
The StoTherm Classic cladding claims now span developments completed over a period stretching from 2000 to 2008, with four of the five proceedings still unresolved and the liquidation timetable giving creditors no confirmed date for any recovery.
