First German Escrow (FGE), a worldwide and independent working Intellectual Property Escrow Agent protects your intellectual property, mission critical material, source codes, high technologies and licensed software applications with validated deposits.

Software Escrow means deposit of the source code of the software into an account held by a third party escrow agent. Escrow is typically requested by a party licensing software (the licensee), to ensure maintenance of the software. The software source code is released to the licensee if the licensor files for bankruptcy or otherwise fails to maintain and update the software as promised in the software license agreement.

The relationsship between the licensor and licensee strengthens when an escrow agreement is signed. It symbolizes the licensor`s commitment to the licensee`s need for uninterrupted support.

First German Escrow provides intellectual property protection for software developers (licensors) and business continuity assurance for licensees by placing a verified copy of source code into an escrow account. Under specific conditions described in an escrow agreement the licensee is able to access the source code, thus mantaining mission critical applications, without harming the intellectual property rights of the licensor. This gives everybody considerable peace of mind.

First German Escrow stands out from other escrow agents because it does not only concentrate on active escrow, but as well looks out for the needs of various licensors, who do not and never wish to lay out their "top secrets" to a third party. We offer the solution. 

Cooperation with wellknown and reputated national and international law firms as well as worldwide cooperation with other wellknown Escrow Agents is given.

The office in Erkelenz, close to Rhine-area around Düsseldorf and Cologne, is offering its service to German and European companies as well as to Global Players.

FGE is acting as a neutral institution and trustee for software vendors and large IT end user accounts in the area of source code depositing and verification to save investments into high value software and to make sure that the continuity of mission critical software processes in large companies can be granted any time.