Dispute Workflow
Terminology
Dispute: a disagreement between two (or more) parties
Ruling: a decision taken about the resolution of a dispute
Arbitrator: the entity that has the power to give a ruling
Appeal: an opportunity for a party to try to contest the current (but not final) ruling
Evidence: material provided by a party to support his/her viewpoint
Dispute Resolution Deep Dive
Dispute Workflow
Two parties disagree on something.
They can't reach an agreement. One party submits a request for creating a dispute.
The other party has a period of time to accept the dispute and proceed with its creation by paying the arbitration fee as well. If the time period expires, the dispute will be resolved in favor of the party who requested its creation.
If the dispute gets created, each party can submit evidence to show their viewpoint and give reasons why they believe they are right
An arbitrator reviews the supporting materials, decides who’s right and gives a ruling
A period opens in which the parties can appeal the ruling taken by the arbitrator
The arbitrator considers the appeals and after the appeal period is over takes a final decision, entering the ruling (more on this later)
Example: dispute on the execution of a service
Alice has hired Bob on HireVibes to create a website for her business. The money is locked in an escrow and will be released to Bob once the job is done and meets Alice’s expectations.
When Bob is done with the website, Alice believes that the job was not done sufficiently for Bob to be paid. They disagree on this, so Alice decides to request the creation of a dispute.
Bob does not agree with Alice, so he decides to proceed with the creation of the dispute.
Both Alice and Bob submit materials to support their point of view
HireVibes’ customer support reviews the materials and believes that Alice is right
Bob can appeal HireVibes’ decision, giving extra information
HireVibes’ still believes that Alice is right and takes a final decision. The escrow is automatically released to Alice
Who is The Arbitrator? Arbitrators can be either centralized (e.g. the customer support of the platform) or decentralized (e.g. Kleros’ network of jurors). TalentLayer supports two options for Dispute Resolution; Kleros and centralized dispute resolution, which is managed by the platform posting the job.
Costs
Arbitrators usually take a fee for ruling on a dispute.
When a party requests the creation of a dispute, it has to lock the arbitration fee in the escrow. In order to accept the dispute, the other party will have to pay the arbitration fee as well. The winner of the dispute will get the arbitration fee reimbursed.
Appeals also have a cost which is defined by the arbitrator.
Standards
In order to be as modular and interoperable as possible, the dispute resolution implementation follows two of the standards defined for this purpose: the Arbitration and Evidence standards.
pageERC-792: Arbitration standardpageERC-1497: Evidence StandardLast updated