Security for costs in international arbitration
CHAPTER 1
Page 1
Introduction to the controversy
Page 1
Introduction
1.1. Security for costs is an interim measure in international commercial arbitration by which a claimant is ordered to provide financial security for the respondent’s costs of defending the proceedings. It is said to be at the ‘forefront of the clash of cultures’, a ‘vexed and complicated’ issue,1 ‘one of the most neglected and misunderstood forms of interim relief’,2 contentious and deserving of separate treatment3 and ‘an interim measure to which international commercial arbitration has been hostile’.4 Interim measures are themselves contentious, and security for costs rides like a teacup in the interim measures squall on the unsettled waters of international commercial arbitration.