Insurance Law · 22.06.2026

ATE Insurance and Who Pays the Lawyer in Vietnam

ATE insurance is an English product built for an English costs rule. Vietnam does not have that rule, and does not have that product. If you are a company or an insurer weighing a claim in Vietnam, the useful question is not where to buy after-the-event cover, but which costs a V…

Lawyer UnilawReading time: 5 min

By Lawyer Nguyen Nhu Hai – UniLaw LLC

ATE insurance is an English product built for an English costs rule. Vietnam does not have that rule, and does not have that product. If you are a company or an insurer weighing a claim in Vietnam, the useful question is not where to buy after-the-event cover, but which costs a Vietnamese tribunal will actually move from one side to the other. That is decided by your dispute resolution clause, not by a policy.

What ATE cover is for

After-the-event insurance is bought once a dispute has already arisen, and it pays the other side’s legal costs if the insured loses. It exists because in England and Wales the losing party normally pays the winner’s costs, so a claimant with a good case can still be ruined by an adverse costs order. Everything else about the product — the premium, the staged trigger, the link to conditional fee agreements — follows from that one rule.

Vietnam has three types of insurance, and legal expenses is not a line

Article 7 of the Law on Insurance Business No. 08/2022/QH15 divides insurance into three types only: life, health and non-life. Article 7(2) leaves it to the Government to list the lines within each type.

Decree No. 46/2023/ND-CP, Article 4, lists the non-life lines: property; goods in transit; aviation; motor vehicle; fire and explosion; hull and shipowners’ liability; liability; credit and financial risk; agriculture; guarantee; and other damage. There is no legal expenses line. A product resembling ATE would have to be written as liability cover under Article 4(7), or as “other damage” under Article 4(11), and licensed on that basis.

Why there is no market: in court, each side pays its own lawyer

Article 168(2) of the Civil Procedure Code, consolidated text No. 21/VBHN-VPQH, defines a lawyer’s fee as the amount payable under the agreement between the party and the lawyer. Article 168(3) then provides that the cost of an interpreter or a lawyer is borne by the party who requested them, unless the parties to the case agree otherwise.

So a Vietnamese court does not, as a rule, order the loser to pay the winner’s legal fees. There is no adverse costs exposure to insure against. That is the whole answer to whether ATE cover can be bought for a Vietnamese case.

Two consequences follow. Treat your own fees as a cost of the claim rather than something to recover at the end. And if you want costs to follow the event, create that by agreement — in the contract before the dispute, or between the parties once it has started, which Article 168(3) expressly allows.

What does shift in a Vietnamese court

Expert and valuation costs do move, and the rules are specific. Under Article 161(1) of the Civil Procedure Code, a party who asks the court to commission an expert pays the cost if the report shows the request had no basis, and pays the proportionate part if it was only partly founded. Article 161(2) reverses that onto the party who opposed the expert request, where the report proves the requesting party right.

Article 161(4) is the closest Vietnamese equivalent to costs following the event: where a party commissions an expert itself under Article 160(3) and the report proves its claim well founded, the losing party bears the expert cost.

Arbitration shifts more than court does

If you want the losing side to carry the cost of running the dispute, arbitration gets closer. Article 34(1) of the Law on Commercial Arbitration, consolidated text No. 60/VBHN-VPQH, defines the arbitration fee as including arbitrators’ remuneration and travel, the cost of consulting experts and other assistance requested by the tribunal, administrative fees, appointment fees and the centre’s other services. Article 34(3) puts the arbitration fee on the losing party, unless the parties agree otherwise, the arbitration rules provide otherwise, or the tribunal allocates it differently.

Note what is in that definition and what is not. The tribunal’s own costs and tribunal-ordered expert work shift by default; your own counsel’s fee is not part of the statutory definition. Counsel’s fees are dealt with by the institutional rules and by the tribunal’s allocation power — which makes it a drafting question to settle when the clause is written, not after the dispute starts.

In an insurance claim, the survey is already on the insurer

Where the underlying matter is a claim against a Vietnamese insurer, part of the cost problem is answered by the insurance statute rather than by procedure. Article 53(1) of Law No. 08/2022/QH15 puts the cost of the loss survey on the insurer. Article 53(2) allows the parties to agree on an independent surveyor where they disagree on the cause and the extent of the loss; if they cannot agree, either party may ask the competent court or the arbitral tribunal to appoint one, and the independent surveyor’s conclusion is binding on both parties.

That is a stronger tool than it looks. A binding independent survey, paid for by the insurer, often settles the number before anyone argues about costs at all.

What to do instead of looking for ATE cover

Settle the costs rule in the contract. An arbitration clause, with chosen rules and an express costs provision, does in Vietnam what ATE does in England.
Agree the fee basis with counsel in writing before work starts, to a defined scope with stage estimates.
In an insurance claim, use Article 53(2) early: a binding independent survey at the insurer’s cost is cheaper than litigating causation.
If you are the claimant and expect to prove the case by expert evidence, Article 161(4) is the route by which that cost can end on the other side.
Do not rely on a foreign ATE policy to answer a Vietnamese costs question without first checking that the insurer is licensed to write the risk here.

Legal basis cited above: Law on Insurance Business No. 08/2022/QH15, Articles 7 and 53; Decree No. 46/2023/ND-CP, Article 4; Civil Procedure Code, consolidated text No. 21/VBHN-VPQH, Articles 160, 161 and 168; Law on Commercial Arbitration, consolidated text No. 60/VBHN-VPQH, Article 34.

Insurers have their own lawyers from day one; the insured usually does not — see Unilaw’s insurance practice, or call +84 912266811 for a first assessment and a fee quote before any work starts.

For the wider picture, see how an insurance law lawyer in Vietnam handles a policy file, and why many a refused insurance claim is reversed on appeal.