Abstract
The issue of costs has become increasingly important in arbitration: costs are not only an economic consequence of arbitration; they are part of the arbitration process with a growing relevance for the strategies of parties involved in arbitration and their counsels. The issue of costs may be analysed from a variety of perspectives. The first one is "how and how much" parties should pay for the arbitral proceeding and deals with specific cost items such as arbitrators' compensation, administrative fees of the institution, expenses for expert witnesses and legal costs. It is also relevant to point out that, beyond the peculiarities of each of these cost items, the difference between ad hoc and institutional arbitrations significantly influences the whole regime of costs. Another relevant question related to the issue of costs is "who" should pay for the arbitration and, accordingly, the rules governing costs allocation between the parties are thoroughly. The third and more constructive enquiry concerns the factors and techniques for saving and reducing costs and time of the arbitral proceedings. Given the importance that third party funding has acquired in the last decades, a short mention is made about financing mechanisms in which a third party covers the costs incumbent upon a party in the arbitral proceeding. This practice, well developed in international arbitration, is now emerging also in the domestic context, raising new issues related to disclosure and conflict of interests.