Stamp duty for further (substitutive) power of attorney and court costs (Article 98 § 1 and 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure)

The article concerns the costs associated with the stamp duty on a further procedural power of attorney. The publication aims to demonstrate that this expense should be – when additional conditions are met – be recognised as a necessary cost for the effective pursuit or defence of rights, regardless of whether it is paid by the main attorney, the substitutive attorney, or the principal. In this regard, the regulation of Article 98 § 1 and 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure is inappropriate, as on the one hand, it allows, for the awarding of costs related to the payment of stamp duty on power of attorney to the prevailing party when paid by a lawyer, and, at least, ambiguously regulates the situation when this duty is paid by the principal or a substitutive attorney. For this reason, Article 98 of the Code of Civil Procedure should be amended in the discussed part to clearly and without interpretative doubts to enable the awarding of costs related to the stamp duty on power of attorney (whether primary or further) to the winning party, regardless of whether the duty was paid by the principal, the main attorney, or the substitute, provided that this expense was incurred under circumstances indicating that it was a necessary cost for the effective pursuit or defence of rights. The research methods used in this study are the dogmatic-legal and analytical methods. They were used to conduct a thorough analysis of the currently applicable and relevant legal regulations from the perspective of the subject matter discussed.