The Arbitration Process

The Arbiter process involves up to three counterparty addresses; the Writer, Holder, and Arbiter.

If any two of the counterparty addresses propose a an identical price, the contract will immediately clear at that price.

Since a contract creator may assign any address to be an Arbitrator, a signaling flag can be triggered by the assigned Arbiter to publicly acknowledge they have been nominated. It should be noted that an Arbiter is not under any direct on-chain commitment to intervene. An individual who is entering into an existing contract should ensure that they trust the assigned arbiter and that the Arbiter has acknowledged the existence of the contract.

If an Arbiter is assigned, the normal clearing process is placed on 3 day cooldown in order to give all counterparties an opportunity to challenge the settlement price provided by the Oracle. During this cooldown, one of the counterparties must propose a new settlement price and convince the Arbiter to propose the same price in order to clear at a new 'correct' price.

If no Arbiter is assigned, then the counterparties can directly agree by proposing identical settlement prices; triggering the contract to clear immediately.

If an Oracle fails to respond, and an Arbiter is assigned but not responding, and the counterparties cannot agree to a new Arbiter, then the funds in the contract will be inaccessible until both counterparties propose an identical mutually agreed price.

The proposal of settlement prices can be managed through the Contract Details, Counterparty Management tab.