ABSTRACT
In England the legislation regulating references out of court under consensual submissions is the Arbitration Act, 1950 (UK). This chapter outlines the present law of costs as it operates in arbitration proceedings and considers whether the law is likely to change. The term arbitration proceedings are usually used here as meaning references under consensual submissions. Statutory arbitrations are not considered although references under an order of the court are considered briefly. In the common law legal systems there are three principal rules or policies regulating the liability for the costs of legal proceedings. These are, a policy giving a party costs not because of the role they play in the legal proceedings but because of his or her success in them, a policy requiring a party, win or lose, to bear his or her own costs, and a policy awarding a party costs only if he or she plays a particular part in the proceedings.
