In Kurdistan Regional Government v. Genel Energy Miran Bina Bawi, the High Court of Justice of England and Wales considered a challenge to a substantial costs award, examining the interplay between the English Arbitration Act 1996 and the LCIA Rules. The underlying dispute, administered by the LCIA, arose from the termination of two Production Sharing Contracts for oil and gas reserves in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), as claimant, terminated the contracts, while the respondent, Genel Energy Miran Bina Bawi Limited (GEMBBL), counterclaimed for damages for repudiation. On December 2, 2024, the arbitral tribunal issued a Partial Final Award which upheld KRG's termination as valid and dismissed GEMBBL's counterclaim. In subsequent costs proceedings, the tribunal awarded KRG over US$26 million, a reduction from the US$35.5 million claimed. GEMBBL applied to the High Court to set aside the costs award under section 68(2)(b) of the Arbitration Act 1996, arguing the tribunal had exceeded its powers. The central plank of GEMBBL's case was that the tribunal had failed to comply with the "Specificity Provisions" of section 63(3) of the Act, which mandate that an award must specify "the items of recoverable costs and the amount referable to each." GEMBBL argued that KRG's costs submissions, which consisted of high-level aggregate figures without detailed breakdowns, were "profoundly unsatisfactory" and that the tribunal's lump-sum award did not meet the statutory requirement for itemization, thus constituting an excess of its jurisdiction. Mrs Justice Dias dismissed the application, delivering a judgment with significant implications for London-seated arbitrations. The court first addressed the relationship between the Act and the chosen institutional rules. It held that by agreeing to arbitrate under the LCIA Rules 2020, the parties had contracted out of the non-mandatory provisions of section 63 of the Act. Article 28 of the LCIA Rules, which grants the tribunal broad discretion to award costs "on such reasonable basis as it thinks appropriate," was found to be a complete and self-contained regime that ousted the default provisions of the Act, including the Specificity Provisions. The court affirmed the primacy of party autonomy, rejecting the notion that institutional rules must be explicitly inconsistent with the Act to displace its default framework. Crucially, the court also held that even if the Specificity Provisions had applied, a failure to comply would not have amounted to an excess of power under section 68. Relying on the House of Lords' decision in Lesotho Highlands, the judge distinguished between a tribunal exercising a power it does not possess (an excess of power) and erroneously exercising a power it does possess (an error of law). The tribunal unquestionably had the power to award costs; any failure in the manner of itemizing those costs was, at most, an error in the exercise of that power. Such an error is not a ground for a section 68 challenge, and since the parties had excluded appeals on points of law under the LCIA Rules, it was not reviewable by the court. While expressing sympathy for GEMBBL and criticizing the "wholly unimpressive" nature of KRG's costs submissions, the court found no grounds to set aside the award and dismissed the application.