The Supreme Court has issued a Resolution on recovery of judicial costs incurred by the parties to the case. In the Resolution, the Supreme Court generally approved and developed the views of its predecessor, the Supreme Arbitrazh Court, expressed in 2012-2014. The Supreme Court has also clarified a number of issues which have been rather ambiguous due to inconsistent court practice. 

The winning party can generally recover incurred judicial costs from the losing party. With this regard the Supreme Court has noted that judicial costs can be recovered not only when the court has considered the merits of the case, but also when court proceedings were terminated, or the statement of claim was declined.

The Supreme Court recommended that lower courts assess the actual involvement of parties into the case. This approach allows to recover judicial costs not only by the parties themselves, but also by third parties involved in the dispute.  

To the delight of all practitioners, the Supreme Court has allowed to recover costs incurred through compulsory pre-trial settlements and through the collection of evidence before filing the statement of claim. Previously courts used to exclude these costs from the total amount of recoverable costs.

Nevertheless, certain approaches proposed by the Supreme Court may change the already established court practice on recovery of costs. Thus, the Supreme Court confirmed the right of lower courts to decrease the amount of costs alleged to be recoverable by the claimant, provided that the said amount is clearly unreasonable. Absence of clear criteria for assessment of reasonableness, and a broad discretion enjoyed by the court, may entail an arbitrary practice of decreasing judicial costs according to the judge’s own (subjective) views as to which costs may be considered reasonable.

The Supreme Court also noted that the reasonableness of judicial costs incurred through payment for legal representation cannot be explained by the fame and reputation of the lawyer. This provision will probably result in a total disregard of the previously adopted approach proposed by the Supreme Arbitrazh Court in its Resolution dated 15.03.3012 No. 16067/11, that required to consider the ranking of the legal representative when recovering judicial costs.