Cola Holdings Limited, the property company of one of London’s wealthiest families, faces allegations of fraud in a High Court claim brought by Ghanaian entrepreneur Nana Kwame Bediako.
Mr Bediako is asking the court to overturn a $14.9 million judgment that Cola Holdings won against him in January 2025. His claim alleges that the paperwork used to secure that judgment was “procured by fraud”.
The central document is a deed of indemnity, dated 18 January 2018, that bears Mr Bediako’s signature. He says the signature is not his. His lawyers say he was in Nigeria on the day the deed was supposedly signed and witnessed at his Accra office.
The claim goes further than the document itself. It contends that Cola Holdings “either knew, or were recklessly indifferent to the fact, that representations made to the court were false”.
The filing also refers to the relationship between Azad Cola, who runs Cola Holdings, and Reginald Sittie, who was Mr Bediako’s executive assistant at the time. It says Mr Cola gave Mr Sittie a Rolex watch in spring 2018. Mr Bediako does not “allege a bribe”. He says the gift was, in his view, “evidence of a relationship in which Mr Sittie was more willing to act on Mr Cola’s wishes than a disinterested employee would be”.
Mr Bediako wants the judgment set aside and compensation for the “serious losses” he says it has caused.
According to The Times, Mr Bediako’s lawyers say “the most likely explanation” is that Mr Sittie used an electronic version of his signature “without Mr Bediako’s approval and without his knowledge”.
Lawrence Cartier, representing Cola Holdings, said the family “categorically denies the claims made” and will submit “a comprehensive defence” in the coming weeks.