On the issue of recovering success fees as part of legal costs

This article examines the question of the possibility of recovering success fees as part of legal costs. In academic discourse, various opinions have been expressed regarding this issue. The arguments of researchers who note the impossibility of including the success fee in the composition of court costs are subjected to critical reflection. As for law enforcement practice, it currently has an approach of not including the success fee as part of court costs. This approach should be reconsidered due to a number of reasons (it excessively protects the interests of the losing party, does not correspond to the literal interpretation of the provisions of procedural legislation, contradicts the functional purpose of the institution of legal costs). Analysis of the presented issue reveals that there are presently no obstacles to employing the same approaches to the recovery of success fees from the losing party as are applied to the recovery of ordinary fees (for this purpose, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation should only radically change its approach).