Judgment No. SC 15/18 Civil Appeal No. SC 266/15 These remarks are apposite. It was not for the court a quo to read the letter to mean that the appellant had accepted the purported transfer of suretyship from the respondent to Lazarus Nyakudya. The clear language used in the letter does not reflect such an intention. The court a quo also erred in making a finding that the first deed of suretyship signed by the respondent was compromised by the one signed by Lazarus Nyakudya. Compromise is defined by R.H Christie in ‘The Law of Contract in South Africa’ 3 rd edition at page 505 as follows: “Compromise, or transactio, is the settlement by agreement of disputed obligations, whether contractual or otherwise. If any offer to settle in particular terms is not accepted, the offeree cannot treat an inseparable part of the offer and sue on it. Even a criminal charge may be settled by the process known as plea bargaining and the resulting compromise will be enforceable. It is a form of novation differing from the ordinary novation in that the obligations novated by the compromise must previously have been disputed or uncertain, the essence of the compromise being the final settlement of the dispute or uncertainty.” What is derived from the above definition is that a compromise is a settlement of a disputed obligation through another agreement which then replaces the principal agreement. In casu, the appellant accepted the deed of surety signed by Lazarus Nyakudya but did not cancel the first deed executed by the respondent. Consequently there was no compromise because as already highlighted, the appellant had to cancel the deed of suretyship in writing to make it valid. That this is a correct reflection of the true status between the parties is borne out by the evidence of the respondent himself and Nyakudya. The respondent accepted that in terms of clause 5 of the deed, the appellant had to agree in writing to the cancellation of the suretyship. He also admitted that the letter written by the 8