[jaclaz]

Europe may be too wide a categorization, I am pretty sure that different countries have different ways to deal with the matter.

My (thankfully very little) experience in Italy is for civil litigations at least (where it is rare that one of the two parties get 100% reason) expenses are usually compensated (i.e. every party pays their own ones), in the more rare case where all expenses are paid by the succumbing party, what is liquidated is not really what has been paid, but rather what the expenses would be along some sort of tariff.

If your solicitor/lawyer is a famous (presumably very good as you won) one, it is likely that the amount you spend is much higher than what the judge condemned the other party to reimburse you.