An escrow agreement may need to be implemented by the interested parties when a licensee is to be licensed software from a developer (or owner), and the licensee requires access to the source code in certain circumstances. In the event that the software owner's business suffers an insolvency event or the developer stops maintaining the software, the terms of the escrow agreement may be triggered, under which the source code is released to the licensee for its continued use and maintenance. As the escrow agreement is a tripartite agreement between the software owner, the licensee or the user, and an independent escrow agent, the escrow agent will hold the source code in accordance with the terms of the agreement and only allow the licensee access to the code if one of the identified trigger events occurs.