It's coming..., page-70

With this $1m cost of arbitration that gets thrown around HC, is this just the cost to lodge an arbitration case and legal costs are on top of that?

I cannot see anyone being able to say arbitration is going to cost $1m max to FAR. From memory the $1m is a quote from FAR but we know that the early quotes from FAR regarding PE need to be taken with a grain of salt - eg the 'expected to take 12 months from filing', but I digress.

The lawyers will likely be paid on a hourly type of rate. I have never heard of a lawyer say 'yep we will bill you a maximum of $1m to deal with this case and there will be no exclusions/additions etc'. That type of deal becomes quite costly (ie less profitable) for a lawyer as the more time they spend on the case the less the revenue they generate per hour. This is even more so as a case drags on.

Being involved in the professional services industry myseklf a KPI of such 'set fee' deals is that you spend as little time as required/possible on it. I would hope this is not the case for FAR's arbitration given they only have one chance at it and COP will throw plenty of money at their lawyers.