Costs of arbitration / Article 20 of the ICC Rules / Assessment of Claimant's normal legal costs / Fees and expenses of experts rejected / Expenses connected with translation and running assignments taken into consideration / Apportionment of costs.

'Whereas the Plaintiff submitted a bill of costs dated ... 1990 as a reminder of expenses incurred by him for the present arbitration, alleging that such expenses amounted to 399,286 French Francs detailed as follows:

Whereas Article 20 of the ICC Rules of Arbitration envisages, inter alia, that the arbitrator's award shall fix the costs of the arbitration and decide which of the parties shall bear the costs or in what proportions the costs shall be borne by the parties. The costs of arbitration shall include the arbitrator's fees and the administrative costs fixed by the Court, the expenses, if any, of the arbitrator, the fees and expenses of any experts, and the normal legal costs incurred by the parties;

Whereas under the provisions of this article, and on the basis of the scale annexed to the ICC Rules, the Court fixed the administrative costs at US$ 15,500, and in setting the Arbitrator's fees, the Court arrived at a figure of US$ 22,340;

Whereas the expenses of the arbitrator amounted to US$ 2,160 - according to the documents produced in this regard.

Whereas the totality of the costs of arbitration as mentioned above to US$ 40,000 (...)

Whereas further the value of the costs alleged to have been incurred by the Plaintiff for this arbitration shall be assessed as follows:

The Plaintiff does not have grounds to request payment of the costs of Mr. X's mission. In effect, the Plaintiff refrained from disclosing the purpose of such mission and did not indicate its direct relation with the present arbitration while he had admitted during the course of the proceedings to be still involved in [country] projects matters unconnected with the present case.

As regards the alleged experts and engineers' fees and expenses, such allegation ought to be rejected as well since the Arbitrator did never appoint any expert for any mission to be accomplished for the purposes of the present case.

Besides, the so-called experts report to the Plaintiff's company and as such are supposed to receive relevant salaries in order to take up their duties. And assuming that the said experts were specially entrusted with submitting statements of accounts as well as relevant documents to the Arbitrator, the fact still remains that most of the documents supplied to that effect had been prepared or developed a long time ago before contemplating to report to the present arbitration. Moreover, should the Plaintiff have furnished all his documents from the outset without any hang-ups, he certainly would have saved a great deal of time ... and energy...

With respect to the claim for expenses in connection with translation and running assignments as fixed by the Plaintiff at 24,275 FF, it may be conceded that such oncosts and overheads have to be taken into consideration since the amount hereof rises to a reasonable figure and forms a part of "the normal legal costs" according to Article 20 cited above.

Whereas, lastly, the Plaintiff's claim succeeded as to the merits, therefore the Defendants ought to bear the entirety of costs evaluated at US$ 40,000 as stated above and to reimburse in consequence the Plaintiff the said amount as being equivalent to the total of the two advance payments made previously by the Plaintiff to the ICC in order to cover the costs of arbitration.

Moreover, the Defendants ought to pay to the Plaintiff the normal legal costs amounting to 24,275 FF as indicated earlier.

That the Defendant shall bear all the costs of arbitration (administrative costs, arbitrator's fee and expenses) fixed at US$ 40,000. Consequently, they shall reimburse the Plaintiff this amount in full as being made by him in connection with the advance payments to cover the said costs of arbitration.

That the Defendants shall pay to the Plaintiff the sum of 24,275 FF, as being the amount representing the Plaintiff's normal legal costs.'