obligation of the third-party. It is a collateral contract, which does not extinguish the original obligation for payment or performance and is secondary to the primary obligation. It is rendered null and void if the original obligation fails. Two forms of guarantee exists in England: guarantees creating a conditional payment, wherein if the principal fails, the guarantor will pay. Under this form, the guarantee is not enforceable until failure occurs. a "see-to-it" obligation, where the guarantor's obligation is to ensure that the principal will carry out the obligation. Failure of the principal to do so will automatically make the guarantor in breach of his contractual obligation, on which the creditor can sue. The liabilities of a guarantor in law depend upon those of the principal debtor, and when the principal's obligations cease the guarantor's do too, except in certain cases where the discharge of the principal debtor is by the operation of the law. The co-extensive, secondary nature of the liability of the guarantor along with the fact that the guarantee is a contract to answer default, debt, or miscarriage; crucially differentiates the guarantee from an indemnity. If, for example, a person wrongly supposes that someone is liable to them, and a guarantee is given on that erroneous basis, the guarantee is invalid by virtue of the law of contracts, because its foundation (that another was liable) failed. No special phraseology is necessary to form a guarantee. What distinguishes a guarantee from insurance is not any difference between the words "insurance" and "guarantee", but the substance of the contract entered into by the parties. The statutory requisites of a guarantee are, in England, prescribed firstly by the statute of frauds, which provides in section 4 that "no action shall be brought whereby to charge the defendant upon any special promise to answer for the debt, default or miscarriages of another person, unless the agreement upon which such action shall be brought, or some memorandum or note thereof, shall be in writing and signed by the party to be charged therewith, or some other person thereunto by him lawfully authorized". This in effect means that a guarantee is not invalid but are merely unenforceable through a chose in personam. The requirement for a signature in writing was clarified in Elpis Maritime Co v Marti Chartering Co Inc (the "Maria D") [1992] 1 AC 21 and J Pereia Fernandes SA v Mehta