Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Related legal acts

Key definition

Costs definition

What does Costs mean? In litigation, costs are the legal fees, disbursements, court fees and VAT incurred in bringing, defending or appealing a claim, and the sums a court or tribunal may order one party to pay another for those liabilities. The concept is governed by procedural rules and case law rather than a single statutory definition: England and Wales (CPR 44–47), Northern Ireland (RCJ Ord 62), Scotland (where the equivalent term is expenses), and Ireland (Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 and the Legal Costs Adjudicators). The general approach is broadly consistent, subject to local terminology and procedure. Typical features include the discretionary rule...

International arbitration costs: managing institutional and tribunal fees, party costs, allocation and recovery (including third-party funding), security for costs and Calderbank offers

Published by a LexisNexis Arbitration expert

Practice notes

This Practice Note explores the place of costs in international arbitration proceedings. Further guidance on this topic appears in Practice Notes: AA 1996—costs, Interest on costs and damages in arbitration, Costs and fees of key arbitral institutions, and the ‘Related documents’ pod. To compare the answers to questions relating to arbitration costs (and funding) in jurisdictions around the world, please consult our International Comparator Tool.

Relevance of costs in international arbitration

This review of costs is aimed chiefly at two objectives—enabling arbitrants to keep expenditure under control and, where they succeed, to recover it from the opposing side. Unchecked dispute costs can rapidly make pursuit of proceedings uneconomic and cause disputants to regret commencing proceedings. By understanding the different categories of cost, parties can introduce greater control and help ensure that the sums incurred are recovered from the opponent...

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Dr Cameron Ford , OAM SC

William Forster Chambers

Dr Cameron Ford OAM SC is an independent arbitrator, counsel and mediator practising from Singapore. He holds a PhD on the topic Towards a Transnational Standard for Security for Costs in International Commercial Arbitration, and is a Specialist Mediator with the Singapore International Mediation Centre. He was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for services to law.Cameron is on the arbitration panels of SIAC, HKIAC, KCAB, CIETAC and BAC and has conducted numerous commercial and investor-state arbitrations as counsel and as arbitrator under various institutional rules including SIAC, ICC, ICSID and UNCITRAL.Cameron was most recently a partner in the international dispute resolution group of Squire Patton Boggs, based in Singapore. He has spent about a decade as in-house counsel with National Australia Bank, Downer Group and Rio Tinto, managing large commercial and investor-state disputes. From that experience he gained a deeper...

Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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