“Guarantees are usually taken to provide a second pocket to pay if the first should be empty.”1 Thus, a guarantee is normally issued to cover a credit transaction: i.e., the guarantee is issued as financial security by a third party in favour of the creditor. In a number of legal systems there are rules on Bürgschaft, Kaution, Garantie or whatever concept is used in the particular legislation. In the common law, on the other hand, there is no legislation in this field, but the concept and the legal framework around it has developed in case law. In many cases a “guarantee (letter)” (e.g., a parent company guarantee for its subsidiary) would specifically state that the issuer gives its undertaking as “guarantor” not “as surety only”, thereby suggesting that there may be a qualitative distinction between a surety and a guarantor and there may be different situations