Clients may become unresponsive for various reasons, other than bad faith. For instance, it is possible that the client loses their private keys and they simply cannot release the money to the contractor.

In that case, the contractor can initiate an emergency claim on the smart contract. When this happens, after 6 months, the contractor will receive the money without the need for the client’s approval.

However, the client can reverse the emergency claim at any time before the 6 month period is up. This is to prevent contractors from abusing the feature by initiating frivolous emergency claims, with the intent of claiming the payout without delivering.

Should a client acting in bad faith attempt to avoid payment by becoming unresponsive, while reversing emergency claims raised, the contractor can simply walk away, leaving the funds held in escrow. The client acting in bad faith can only retrieve the funds from the smart contract after 12 months by freezing the escrow.