International Construction Law Review
BOOK REVIEWS
Quick On Costs
by Roger Quick and David Garnsworthy. LBC Information Services, North Ryde, New South Wales 2113, Australia. ISBN 0 455 21036 5. Loose-leaf, regularly brought up to date.
Although this two volume loose-leaf work looks formidable, it is very easy to use and thus readily reveals its riches. Mr Roger Quick is a solicitor, and a partner in the Australian firm of Gadens, Lawyers, based in Brisbane, Queensland. Mr David Garnsworthy is a barrister and solicitor whose contribution to the book has assisted its expansion to cover family law matters. However, it must not be thought that the book, although based on practice in Australia, is confined to that country or to New Zealand. It will be relevant to every jurisdiction which follows English principles and practice. In English law, as now provided by the Arbitration Act 1996, and in other places, the presumption is that a party who succeeds in an action or in an arbitration (or on an application made in either) is generally entitled to recover from the losing party the costs involved in the action, arbitration or application. As this is a long-standing principle, there is much to learn about how best to take advantage of it both in the recording and in the claiming of the costs to which a party may be entitled and, conversely, in reducing the amount of that entitlement.
Given the high costs involved in construction disputes and in taking them to arbitration or to the courts, or, indeed, to some
alternative forms of dispute resolution, recovery of the costs incurred is a material consideration. Indeed the cost of some claims is so disproportionate to the amount at stake that it acts as a deterrent to a claimant who may fear that if the claim were not to succeed, or if route there were some tactical reverses, the venture would not be worthwhile. On the other hand the advantage of this principle and practice is that a party with a meritorious claim can pursue it without worrying whether the costs that may have to be paid to lawyers, experts and others will need to be defrayed out of any award. The utility of this approach has been recognised in, for example, the ICC Rules of Arbitration which empower the tribunal to include in an award costs to which the successful party may be entitled.
Accordingly, a work of this kind is of considerable value to all those who practise in arbitrations where the tribunal has such a power and is, therefore, of direct concern to international construction arbitrations. In case it is thought that the work might be too concerned with points of interest only to practitioners in common law courts, it must be emphasised that Mr Quick has included a special chapter (Chapter 10) on “Costs in Arbitration Proceedings”. Here he covers not merely practice in arbitrations regulated by legislation, such as the Arbitration Act 1996 (England) or legislation in Australia and New Zealand, but also in arbitrations conducted in accordance
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Book Reviews
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