Before Arbitration: Assessing Cost, Timing and Recovery Prospects

By Sandor-Laszlo Pal · Published and reviewed 28 September 2026

A claim’s face value is not a business case. Before approving arbitration expenditure, decision-makers need a view of the evidence, procedural route, cash requirements and practical recovery prospects. The right level of analysis should reflect both the exposure and the decision being made.

Build a staged budget

Separate adviser fees from institutional and tribunal charges, experts, translations, hearings and possible enforcement work. State the assumptions behind each range: number of parties, counterclaims, document volume, technical issues and anticipated hearing length. Agree what triggers a revised estimate and who can approve additional work.

The ICC’s Effective Management of Arbitration guide offers a framework for managing the process in light of a dispute’s value and complexity. Its practical relevance is to make procedural choices conscious and proportionate, rather than treating every possible step as necessary.

Use a timetable with dependencies

Identify contractual notice steps, applicable deadlines, tribunal formation, written submissions, document production, expert work and any hearing. Distinguish an institutional rule’s timetable from a prediction of the entire case. Availability, procedural disputes and evidential complexity can change the schedule.

Ask for a critical-path view: what can start now, what depends on another decision and which assumptions need checking? Keep operational deadlines, including replacement supply and finance approvals, visible beside the legal timetable.

Assess recovery before the final award

Identify the correct debtor and seek lawful information about potentially relevant assets and jurisdictions. Consider solvency, competing creditors, asset location and the cost of further proceedings. An award and cash recovery are separate milestones.

The New York Convention provides an international framework for recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. It does not make recovery automatic. The relevant state’s treaty position, domestic procedure and possible objections require assessment with appropriately qualified local counsel.

Compare realistic options

Place arbitration alongside a negotiated resolution, mediation, a targeted preliminary review or, where commercially justified, a decision not to pursue further expenditure. Compare cost, likely timing, operational impact, relationship value and uncertainty. Avoid precise percentages that the evidence cannot support.

Record what must be true for each option to make sense. A settlement proposal may depend on security, staged payment or continuing supply. A decision to proceed may depend on locating assets or obtaining missing technical evidence.

Set approval points

Define the next decision and the information needed to make it. A limited initial assignment might produce a procedural map, an evidence-gap analysis or a budgeted recommendation. Further work can then be approved against a written scope, with responsibilities and reporting intervals agreed.

This approach aims to improve cost visibility and decision-making. It cannot promise a particular outcome, a fixed recovery date or that all costs will be recoverable.

Request a commercial assessment

Explore pre-arbitration strategy and award-enforcement planning, or Request a Confidential Commercial Assessment. Suitable matters are invited to a private, no-charge 20-minute briefing before any separately scoped proposal.

General information, not an assessment of the merits, limitation position or enforceability of a particular claim.