"David Kane" writes:
The "spin" is in the claim of "victory". Do you really think someone with a
valid
claim to the world championship would give it up for $25K??
FIDE was just being expedient. What would have been the point of
spending $100k+ in legal costs to "win"?

If FIDE won, Susan would have had to pay the costs. Anyway, in that
particular court, lawyers are not required:

The parties may appear themselves before the CAS or be represented
by a person of their choice, who may or may not a lawyer.
(http://www.tas-cas.org/en/pdf/guide.pdf p.8)

The court attempts to keep costs low:

One of the CAS objectives is to make available to the members of the
world sports family an instrument for settling disputes not only
rapidly, but also at little cost. (p. 9)

And they encourage parties to settle:

The arbitration procedure before the CAS allows the flexible
resolution of a considerable number of disputes, and encourages the
search for an amicable solution. Discussion between the parties is
facilitated, and it is not uncommon for an arrangement to be found
during the proceedings. (p. 8)

Here is a case where FIDE went through the whole CAS procedure and
claimed the result as a victory, though if you read the actual
decision, it was a partial victory at best:

http://fide.com/news.asp?id=1295

Here is one from someone who claimed FIDE jerked him around about the
2004 Men's WC. FIDE won this one partly on legalistic grounds, but
still got penalized because of their procedural shenanigans:

http://fide.com/news.asp?id=694

Both of the above show that FIDE is willing to see these cases all the
way through if they think they are going to win. In Polgar's case,
they paid up and slunk away.