Travel expenses of party representatives to attend court hearings (transportation, accommodation, and daily allowances) constitute court costs and are subject to reimbursement – SC CommCC

The costs incurred by a party for sending its representatives to another city to participate in a court hearing before the cassation instance are considered court costs, since participation in a court hearing is a procedural action, and traveling to the court in another city is objectively necessary for exercising the right to defence.

This conclusion was reached by a panel of judges of the Commercial Cassation Court within the Supreme Court.

By its resolution, the Commercial Cassation Court of the Supreme Court left the cassation appeal of LLC without satisfaction and upheld the court decisions of the previous instances without changes.

Military units applied to the Supreme Court with a motion to recover from the LLC court costs related to the business trip of their representatives to another city to participate in the court hearing at the cassation instance.

The Commercial Cassation Court of the Supreme Court established that the representatives of the military units participated in the court hearing through self-representation, and the claimed expenses were confirmed by proper evidence provided by the representatives: orders for business trips, travel documents, accommodation invoices, and reports on the use of funds.

The cassation court noted that a party’s expenses for sending its representatives to a court hearing in another city (transportation, accommodation, and daily allowances) constitute court costs, as participation in a court hearing is a procedural action. If the hearing is held in another city, the representative’s arrival at the court is objectively necessary for exercising the right to defence. Accordingly, the costs of travel and accommodation for a party’s representative who is its employee and participates in the case through self-representation are expenses directly related to the performance of procedural actions.

Although the Commercial Procedural Code of Ukraine does not explicitly single out a party’s expenses for business trips of its employees as a separate type of court costs (unlike expenses for professional legal assistance), such costs fall within the scope of clause 4, part 3 of Article 123 of the Commercial Procedural Code of Ukraine.

The Commercial Cassation Court of the Supreme Court recognized these costs as reasonable, proportionate, and directly related to the consideration of the case.

Following the review, the Commercial Cassation Court granted the motion of the military units and recovered the costs incurred at the cassation instance.

Additional resolution of the Commercial Cassation Court of the Supreme Court dated 28 January 2026, in case No. 916/4944/24 – http://reyestr.court.gov.ua/Review/133666805.

This and other legal positions of the Supreme Court can be found in the Database of Legal Positions of the Supreme Court - https://lpd.court.gov.ua.