Costs

Abstract The opportunity for parties to recover their costs at the end of any arbitral process has long been a factor enticing parties to select arbitration over national court forums, where costs frameworks can range from permission to recover nominal amounts to outright denial of recovery altogether. The attention paid by arbitral users to costs recovery in arbitration has only heightened, as both international and domestic arbitrations have become more pervasive and costly over time. The updated costs provisions in the 2022 DIAC Rules represented a significant improvement for long-standing DIAC users of all stripes, alleviating concerns that had arisen from the interpretation and implementation of the costs provisions under the 2007 DIAC Rules. The 2007 costs rules appeared in a separate schedule, only referencing the recoverability of the Centre’s administrative fees, the Tribunal’s fees and expenses, and the fees and expenses of any experts appointed by the Tribunal. Article 4 of the 2007 costs schedule, while permitting Tribunals to ‘make decisions on costs at any time during the proceedings’, also provided that ‘[a]ny dispute regarding the costs of arbitration shall be determined by the Executive Committee’. Article 36 of the 2022 DIAC Rules, with its supporting appendix, is therefore a positive development, taking account of arbitral users’ need for clarity over the recoverability of legal fees and party-appointed experts’ fees and expenses, and the possibility of recovering a wider spectrum of costs incurred during the lifespan of an arbitration.