Escrow Agreements

There are various types of standard escrow agreement. We can also provide bespoke escrow agreements on request.LE&AS have extensive experience of creating balanced and equitable software escrow agreements for software developers, software owners, software providers and their customers. These are designed to protect the investments made by all relevant parties.

All software release events are determined by a specialist independent solicitor with a minimum of ten years experience in intellectual property law.

Single Licensee Agreement

This is a standard agreement between a Software User(Licensee), Software Vendor (Licensor) and the Escrow Agent (LE&AS). This type of agreement would be set up if the source code deposit required was specific to the Licensee.

Multi-Licensee Agreement

This is the most common agreement, set up by a Software Vendor (Licensor) so that any of their current or future Software Users may register against the agreement.  This type of agreement would be set up if the source code deposit required was not specific to any one Licensee.

Bespoke Agreement

This is a standard agreement between a Software User  (Licensee), Software Vendor (Licensor) and the Escrow Agent (LE&AS). This type of agreement would be set up if the source code deposit required was specific to the Licensee and  either party (Licensee or Licensor) wish to add specific clauses into the agreement.

Distributor Agreement

A Software Vendor may wish to set up an agreement where they are selling a third party software product which may be integrated with their own software. The Software Vendor may therefore not be a registered user of the Software but their customers will be Software Users. This type of agreement would be set up if the Software Vendor needed to ensure it would always have access to the source code to support its’ own customers, which may be necessary for large organisations with complex international or national group structures.

SaaS Agreement

This is the most legally challenging area in the current economic climate and an absolutely critical agreement for anyone using or selling SaaS services or applications. These are described in further detail in the SaaS escrow section.

For software as a service customers please visit SaaS escrow