Disputes & Resolution Policy

1. Overview

This Disputes & Resolution Policy describes how disagreements between an Employer and a Worker on the Worqen Service are handled when funds are held in Worqen escrow. It supplements the Terms of Service and is binding on every User who funds, receives or works under a Worqen escrow.

This Policy is concerned with release of funds from escrow. Wider contractual or legal claims between Users (for example claims for additional damages, IP ownership, or claims against Worqen itself) follow the dispute-resolution mechanism in Section 17 of the Terms of Service (ICC arbitration, Tallinn seat) or your statutory consumer rights, as applicable.

2. When you can raise a dispute

Either the Employer or the Worker may raise a dispute on an escrow that is in FUNDED or PENDING_RELEASE status. Once a dispute is raised, funds in the vault are frozen until the dispute is resolved.

2a. Disputes after funds are released

The binding resolution process in Section 2 is available only while an escrow is in FUNDED or PENDING_RELEASE status. Once funds have been released and transferred on-chain to a Worker, they leave the escrow vault and enter the Worker's own wallet. At that point Worqen has no custody of, and no control over, the funds: a settled Solana transaction is irreversible, and Worqen cannot freeze, claw back or compel the return of money that has already left escrow. A released escrow therefore cannot be disputed through Section 2.

Two narrow paths remain, and they are different in kind from a binding dispute:

• Auto-release reversal — where a 14-day automatic release was issued in error, either party may open a dispute within 7 days of that release and Worqen may re-open the escrow review, as set out in Section 4 of the Refund & Cancellation Policy. This is the only situation in which a released escrow can re-enter the process above.
• Voluntary-return facilitation — for any other release (including a release you now believe was made in error, or where you later discover a problem with the delivered work), you may contact disputes@worqen.com within 30 days of the release. As a goodwill gesture and entirely at our discretion, Worqen may reach out to the receiving party and ask them to return the funds voluntarily.

Voluntary-return facilitation is a best-effort, non-binding service. It is not a dispute, it is not decided by Worqen, and it does not stay or reverse anything on-chain. Worqen cannot require the receiving party to return funds, cannot move funds that are no longer in escrow, and gives no assurance that any request will succeed. The 30-day window is offered as a courtesy: it creates no obligation on Worqen and no entitlement or right to a reversal for you, and a decision not to facilitate — or an unsuccessful facilitation — is not a dispute outcome and is not appealable under Section 8.

Your remedies once funds have moved on-chain — including proceedings against the other party and your statutory rights — are described in Section 4 of the Refund & Cancellation Policy and in Section 17 of the Terms of Service. Nothing in this section limits them.

3. Common grounds for a dispute

• The Worker did not deliver the work, or delivered it materially late;
• The deliverable is materially different from what was agreed;
• The deliverable is plagiarised, infringes third-party IP, or contains undisclosed AI-generated content where disclosure was required;
• The Employer is not responding and the auto-release window has not yet been triggered;
• One party suspects the other's account is compromised or fraudulent.

Disputes that are clearly outside the Service (off-platform engagements, claims arising from work not booked through Worqen) cannot be resolved through this Policy.

4. Lifecycle and service levels

Worqen aims to handle every dispute on the schedule below. Where the case is unusually complex (for example, multi-language evidence, third-party legal claims, suspected coordinated fraud), we may extend any window with written notice; we will not extend them silently.

The working language of a dispute is English. Submissions, the evidence you rely on and Worqen's written decision are made in English; where you submit evidence in another language, we may ask you to provide an English translation before we can properly weigh it, which is why multi-language evidence can lengthen the timelines below. If you are a consumer, this does not affect your right, under mandatory consumer law, to receive the essential information about a decision that affects you in the official language of the country in which you ordinarily reside.

4a. Non-participation and default outcomes

The service levels in Section 4 run whether or not both parties take part. If a party does not acknowledge the dispute, does not respond, or submits no evidence within the windows set out above, the clock does not stop: Worqen still issues its written decision at the Section 4 deadline, on the basis of the record then available. Silence by one side is not a reason to leave the deposit frozen.

A party that has not participated by the close of the 7-day evidence window is deemed to accept the decision Worqen reaches on the record. That party gives up the right to have the decision set aside on the ground that it was made without their input; their right to appeal under Section 8 and their statutory rights under Section 9 are unaffected.

Because a non-participating party puts nothing on the record, the evidentiary standard in Section 5 will ordinarily resolve the disputed points against them where the other party's evidence is unrebutted. The most common version of this — an Employer who neither releases nor disputes — is handled instead by the 14-day administrative auto-release described in the Fees & Charges Schedule and Section 8 of the Terms of Service, not by this Section.

Mutual non-participation. If neither party engages after a dispute is raised — no acknowledgement, evidence or response from either side within the windows above — Worqen closes the dispute and decides on the record. Where the record is silent as to whether the work was delivered, the undisputed portion of the deposit is returned to the funder (the Employer). This is a default applied to an empty record, not an automatic refund: where the record does show delivery, Section 5 governs and the Worker's share is decided on that evidence.

Deemed acceptance affects only the decision, never the mechanics of payment. No outcome under this Section releases funds automatically or on-chain, and no party's silence moves any funds by itself. As set out in Section 7, every movement of escrow funds still requires Worqen's 2-of-3 multi-signature platform-authority to sign the resolve_dispute instruction on the Escrow Program.

5. Evidentiary standards

Worqen reviews disputes on the basis of the evidence on the Service, not on offline knowledge. The strongest evidence is:

• The job description, agreed scope and milestones as posted on the Service;
• Messages in the on-platform chat between the parties;
• Files uploaded through the Service (work products, briefs, references);
• Worklog entries and milestone submissions made on the Service;
• Time-stamped commits, edits and version history available within the Service.

Off-platform evidence (separate emails, screenshots from other channels) may be considered but carries less weight, and Worqen may discount evidence that we cannot cryptographically or contextually verify. To strengthen your position in a future dispute, keep the relevant communications and deliverables on the Service.

Worqen decides each dispute on the balance of the evidence on the Service — in plain terms, on which account of what was agreed and what was delivered is more likely correct on the Service record. We do not require either party to prove their case to an absolute certainty, and we decide on the material actually before us rather than on assertions we cannot check.

The party alleging that the work was not delivered, or was materially late, defective or off-scope, carries the initial burden of making that case out from the evidence on the Service. Once a credible case is made out, it is then for the Worker to evidence delivery — for example, by pointing to submitted work products, milestone submissions or version history on the Service. This is not an automatic finding against either party: it works together with the evidence-weighting above (including that off-platform evidence carries less weight), and Worqen weighs both parties' material before deciding. Worqen is not a party to the underlying contract between the Employer and the Worker and does not itself warrant the work; it allocates the escrowed deposit on the evidence and does not adjudicate every wider claim between the parties.

The dispute file is confidential. The dispute chat, the evidence exchanged in it and Worqen's written decision are shared with you to resolve the case, and we expect both parties to keep them confidential and to use them only for that purpose. This expectation does not stop you from using the materials to exercise or defend a legal claim, to bring the proceedings preserved under Section 9 (Independence from arbitration), to take professional advice, or to exercise your statutory consumer or data-protection rights, and it does not limit anything Worqen is required to disclose or explain to you under the Digital Services Act or the appeal process in Section 8. A settlement offer that either party makes to resolve a dispute is made in a genuine attempt to settle and should not be treated as an admission of liability. We retain the dispute file for the periods set out in the Privacy Policy.

6. Possible outcomes

• Full release to Worker — the Worker receives the deposit; the Employer pays the applicable commission (5%, or 3% with Prime);
• Full refund to Employer — the Employer recovers the deposit and the commission;
• Split release — the deposit is split between the parties in the proportion Worqen determines to be fair on the evidence; commission applies only to the portion released to the Worker. When apportioning a split, Worqen has regard to factors including, without limitation:
  • the proportion of the agreed scope or milestones actually delivered on the Service;
  • whether any partial or delivered work is usable by the Employer as delivered;
  • each party's responsiveness and good faith during the engagement and the dispute;
  • the materiality of any shortfall, delay or defect relative to what was agreed.
  This list is not exhaustive and no single factor is decisive; Worqen weighs them together on the evidence on the Service;
• Re-hire credit — at our discretion, the Employer may receive a re-hire credit for the affected amount, valid for 90 days, as set out in the Refund & Cancellation Policy;
• Account action — where dispute review uncovers fraud, account takeover, sanctions hits or other serious breach, Worqen may suspend or terminate the offending account in addition to (not instead of) deciding the escrow.

6a. Hourly engagements (weekly settlement)

Some engagements are paid by the hour rather than for a single fixed deposit. These are settled through Worqen's weekly-settlement model, and the way an escrow — and therefore a dispute — works differs from the single-deposit flow described above. Where this Section 6a applies, the same dispute process and service levels still apply, but they attach to individual weekly tranches rather than to one deposit, and the timing is different; read this Section together with Sections 2, 4 and 6.

6a.1 How the money is held

At the start of each week the Employer pre-funds a capped weekly budget — the agreed hourly rate multiplied by a weekly hours limit, plus the applicable commission — into a dedicated on-chain vault for that week. The Worker is protected by that real, pre-deposited money, not by any Worqen guarantee: Worqen does not advance, insure or "cover" a Worker's pay, and does not custody the funds (see Fees & Charges Schedule Section 4). Hours logged above the pre-funded weekly cap cannot be billed at all; the cap is enforced on-chain.

6a.2 Weekly tranches and the per-tranche dispute window

During the week the Worker bills against the funded budget up to seven times. Each bill earmarks a tranche of the already-funded vault as its own escrow, with its own 7-day frozen window and its own timer. During that window either party may raise a dispute on that specific tranche.

If no dispute is raised before the window closes, the tranche is treated as accepted and is finalised on-chain by the finalize_tranche instruction, paying the Worker the tranche amount and the applicable commission (see the Fees & Charges Schedule) to Worqen. This finalisation is permissionless: it can be triggered by anyone, so the Worker is paid even if the Employer or Worqen becomes unresponsive. Worqen does not "release" the tranche and cannot hold it back by inaction. Once a tranche is finalised on-chain the transfer is irreversible, so a dispute must be raised during the 7-day window, not after. The 14-day administrative auto-release described in the Fees & Charges Schedule applies only to fixed-price escrows and not to hourly tranches, which follow the 7-day permissionless timer described here.

6a.3 Your warranty for each logged interval

Each time the Worker logs an interval, the Worker warrants that it reflects time actually and productively spent on that engagement, and that any evidence attached to it (geolocation, photo, memo) is genuine. Logging time that was not worked, inflating hours, or attaching fabricated evidence is a ground for a dispute and a breach of the Acceptable Use Policy.

6a.4 What an hourly dispute reviews

Raising a dispute freezes the affected tranche in place — it does not claw back money that has already finalised, and it does not draw on any Worqen balance. The dispute is then handled through the same chat thread, 7-day negotiation window, percentage proposals, maker-checker approval and service levels set out in Sections 4 and 5, attached to that individual tranche. The strongest evidence remains the on-Service worklog described in Section 5.

Worqen's review of an hourly tranche is deliberately narrow. We review hours, not the subjective quality of the work. Our review is limited to:

• removing hours logged above the pre-funded weekly cap; and
• removing hours that are plainly unrelated to the engagement or unsupported by the worklog evidence.

The outcome sets the Worker's share of that tranche — which can never exceed the tranche amount — through the resolve_hourly_tranche instruction. Commission is charged only on the portion released to the Worker; the remainder of the tranche, together with the commission on it, returns to the Employer. Any part of the weekly budget the Worker never billed is returned to the Employer at the end of the week. Worqen does not keep unused pre-funding.

6b. When the entitled party cannot receive the funds

The outcomes in Section 6 assume that whoever the evidence entitles to the funds can lawfully and technically receive them. Sometimes that is not the case: during a dispute a party may fail or lose identity verification, match a sanctions list, be suspended for fraud, or lose access to the wallet they funded from or expected to be paid to. Because settlement happens on-chain and is irreversible, and because Worqen can only move escrow funds through the 2-of-3 multi-signature described in Section 7, we cannot release funds to a destination that is unlawful or that no one controls. This Section explains what happens in each case. In none of them does Worqen take ownership of the funds, hold them as fiat or convert them; they stay in the on-chain vault until they can be released correctly.

• A party entitled to the funds is sanctioned — where the party a decision would pay matches an OFAC, EU, UK or UN sanctions list (see Identity Verification Section 12), we withhold the release. Releasing cryptocurrency to a blocked person would itself be a sanctions breach, so we cannot pay them even where the evidence is in their favour, and we do not automatically redirect their share to the other party. The funds remain frozen in the vault and the matter is handled under our anti-money-laundering and sanctions process, which may include a report to the Estonian Financial Intelligence Unit. If the match is later cleared, the release proceeds; if it is confirmed, the funds remain locked and are dealt with in accordance with the applicable sanctions and asset-freezing rules.
• A party is suspended or terminated for fraud or account takeover — where dispute review shows that a party acted in bad faith (see Sections 6 and 10), the decision may direct the funds to the other party, or return them to the Employer who funded the escrow. A suspension for fraud does not entitle the offending party to a payout.
• A payee has lost access to their wallet — Worqen cannot recover, reset or reissue a wallet, and cannot change the destination of an on-chain release to a different address on a party's say-so (see Terms of Service Section 8.4, which places wallet security on you). If the party a decision would pay cannot receive at a wallet they control, the funds remain locked in the vault. They are not forfeited and they do not pass to the other party; they stay recoverable, pending our procedure for escrow that cannot be delivered, under which the entitled party must first establish a valid destination they control and that is clear of sanctions before any release is signed.
• A party has failed or not completed identity verification — a party who cannot be verified through Sumsub cannot be paid, because payment requires a completed identity verification. The funds remain frozen until verification is completed or the account's status is otherwise resolved. Completing identity verification confirms who you are; it does not by itself restore access to a lost wallet.

These situations can take longer than the service levels in Section 4, because they depend on an external screening, verification or authority decision that is outside Worqen's control. We will keep the affected parties informed of status through the dispute chat. This Section works together with Identity Verification Section 8.3, which confirms that escrowed funds are frozen — not forfeited — while these matters are resolved.

7. Who decides

Decisions are made by Worqen Trust & Safety personnel under the supervision of the Worqen Disputes Lead. Any release of funds from the Escrow Program is then signed by Worqen's multi-signature platform-authority. The signers are composed of three independent classes of signers (operations, security and an external signer); a 2-of-3 threshold is required for any signature. Specific signer identities are not disclosed for security reasons. The 2-of-3 multi-sig is also the only mechanism by which Worqen can move escrow funds at all; Worqen does not hold a single hot key capable of resolving a dispute alone.

The reviewer assigned to a dispute must have no personal or financial interest in either party or in the outcome. Where a reviewer has, or later discovers, such a conflict — for example a prior relationship with either party, or any personal stake in how the deposit is divided — they will not be assigned to the case, or will step aside (recuse) so that it is reassigned to another reviewer with no such conflict. Reviewers decide on the evidence on the Service (Section 5) against the outcomes set out in Section 6, and are instructed to disregard any off-platform relationship or consideration.

7a. Worqen's role and limitations

In handling a dispute, Worqen acts as a neutral holder of the authority to instruct the Escrow Program, not as a judge of the underlying agreement between the Employer and the Worker. Worqen is not a party to that agreement (see Section 2 of the Terms of Service) and has no duty to investigate its merits, to interpret it, or to look beyond the evidence on the Service described in Section 5 above. We decide only what share of the deposit each party receives, on that evidence, and we may act on instructions and submissions that appear genuine on their face without independently verifying their authenticity. We are not a licensed escrow agent or money transmitter, and nothing in this Policy makes us one.

Because the escrow is non-custodial and settles on the Solana blockchain, there are hard technical limits on what Worqen can do with a deposit. These limits apply in exactly the same way whether the instruction comes from our own decision, from the two parties, or from a court or arbitral tribunal:

• Only funds still in the vault can be moved. Once the Escrow Program has released a deposit to the Worker or refunded it to the Employer, that transfer is settled on-chain and irreversible (see Section 8 of the Terms of Service). Worqen cannot claw it back, reverse it or re-route it, and no instruction from us can undo it.
• Only the program's own outcomes are possible. The Escrow Program can release the deposit to the Worker, refund it to the Employer, or split it between them, and only through the 2-of-3 multi-signature authority described in Section 7 above. Worqen cannot direct escrow funds to a third party, to a court, or to any address the program does not support.
• Orders must be technically executable. Where a court or arbitral tribunal with proper jurisdiction directs Worqen to release, refund or otherwise deal with a specific escrow, we will comply to the extent it is technically feasible to do so through the Escrow Program's instructions while the funds remain in the vault. We will act on such an order once we receive it in a form we can reasonably verify; where we may lawfully do so, we will first give the affected Users notice and a reasonable opportunity to respond, and we may require the party seeking or benefiting from the order to bear our reasonable costs of complying.

If we receive conflicting instructions, or an order we cannot technically execute against a transfer that has already settled, the affected funds simply remain locked in the vault until a resolution is reached that the Escrow Program can actually carry out. Holding the position in this way is the crypto-native equivalent of paying disputed money into court: Worqen does not keep the funds and does not decide the wider contract between the parties; it only holds them in the vault, on the program's terms, until the dispute is resolved.

8. Appeals

Either party may appeal a dispute decision in writing to disputes-appeal@worqen.com within 7 days of the decision. The appeal will be reviewed by a different reviewer who took no part in the original decision and who is subject to the same no-conflict standard set out in Section 7; where feasible, the appeal is reviewed under separate supervision. We will respond substantively within 14 days. Appeals do not stay the on-chain resolution unless we explicitly say so.

9. Independence from arbitration

Worqen's dispute decision is final between the parties for the purpose of releasing funds from the Escrow Program. It does not displace:

• your statutory consumer rights, where you are an EU/EEA, UK, Brazilian, Indian or Ukrainian consumer;
• your right to bring proceedings against the other party (or against Worqen, where applicable) under the dispute-resolution clause of the Terms of Service;
• EU consumers' right to use the European Commission's online dispute resolution platform at ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr for claims against Worqen.

10. Abuse of the dispute process

Filing a dispute in bad faith — fabricated evidence, repeated frivolous disputes, coordinated retaliation, attempts to use the dispute system to extract free work — is a breach of the Acceptable Use Policy. We may decide the dispute against the bad-faith party and pursue enforcement under that Policy (including suspension and account termination).

11. Contact

Open dispute: through the dispute button in the relevant escrow.
Status enquiries: disputes@worqen.com
Appeals: disputes-appeal@worqen.com