Online Reporter
Fidelis Munyoro
Chief Court Reporter
Diaspora Meds (Pty) Ltd has been ordered to pay Cellmed Health Medical Fund US$757,980.60, after the High Court rejected its claim that it had been forced into signing an acknowledgment of debt.
Justice Mungwari granted a provisional sentence against the South African-registered company, ordering it to pay the debt with 18 percent annual interest from February 5, 2026, until full payment, together with legal costs on the legal practitioner-and-client scale and collection commission.
The ruling brings into sharp focus a bitter dispute over millions of dollars in medical-aid subscriptions allegedly collected by Diaspora Meds but not remitted to Cellmed.
The parties’ relationship began under an agency arrangement in which Diaspora Meds was responsible for generating and administering members of Cellmed’s diaspora medical-aid product and collecting subscriptions for onward payment to the fund.
By late 2025, substantial arrears had accumulated.
On February 5, 2026, Diaspora Meds signed an acknowledgment of debt recording the amount claimed by Cellmed and agreed to a payment plan requiring monthly instalments of US$15,000, with an acceleration clause making the outstanding balance immediately payable upon default.
Diaspora Meds fought the claim, saying it owed only US$210,000 and that the acknowledgment had been signed under economic duress after Cellmed suspended its account.
The company said the suspension disrupted its business, cost it customers and damaged its reputation, leaving it with no realistic choice but to sign.
Justice Mungwari rejected that argument.
The judge said the defendant had been given time to consider the agreement and seek advice before signing it — circumstances which undermined its claim that it had been subjected to irresistible pressure.
“The defendant was not confronted with an instrument and required to sign it immediately,” Justice Mungwari said.
“That interval is inconsistent with the picture of an irresistible, immediate compulsion under which no reasonable alternative could be pursued.”
The judge also found it significant that Diaspora Meds was relying on the same acknowledgment of debt it attacked as invalid.
The company admitted owing US$210,000, while simultaneously arguing that the entire acknowledgment had been procured under duress.
Justice Mungwari described that position as a fundamental difficulty in the defence.
“The defendant cannot approbate and reprobate the same instrument.”
The court also rejected the company’s attempt to rely on an arbitration clause in the earlier agency agreement.
Justice Mungwari held that the later acknowledgment of debt and payment plan constituted a new written arrangement dealing with the indebtedness, repayment and consequences of default.
The judge further dismissed the challenge to the 18 percent interest rate, finding that the Moneylending and Rates of Interest Act did not apply because the underlying transaction was not a conventional loan.
Diaspora Meds had received medical-aid subscriptions for onward remittance; Cellmed had not advanced money to the company as a borrower.
“The resulting indebtedness was therefore not created by a loan,” the judge held.
The court was also told that Diaspora Meds had launched separate proceedings seeking to have the acknowledgment of debt declared invalid and the underlying accounts referred to arbitration.
But those proceedings, case HCH1951/26, had subsequently been deemed abandoned.
Justice Mungwari said that left no live parallel case capable of delaying determination of the provisional – sentence application.
In the end, the court found that Diaspora Meds had failed to put forward a sufficiently credible bonafide defence to defeat Cellmed’s claim.
