The arbitral tribunal deals with costs after deciding the jurisdictional and preliminary issues and after dealing with the merits of the dispute, which may involve going through thick files of documents.
In other words, dealing with costs takes place after the making of an effort which may occasionally exhaust the energies of the arbitral tribunal. This may be accompanied by a tendency to consider costs as a minor and non-intellectually stimulating issue.
The result of this combined approach may be that the arbitral tribunal does not devote to the costs award the time and attention which is required in circumstances where one party is not fully awarded its claim and the other party does not entirely fail.
Journal of International Arbitration