Cheddar asks UK court to overturn $14.9m judgment against him over alleged forgery

Ghanaian businessman and political figure Nana Kwame Bediako, popularly known as Cheddar, challenged a US$14.9 million judgment against him in a London court, arguing that the case was based on a forged document.

Nana Kwame Bediako has asked the High Court in London to overturn the January 2025 ruling in favour of Cola Holdings, a company linked to his business partner, Azad Cola.

According to a report by The Times on November 8, 2026, Cheddar claims the document used to establish his responsibility for part of a loan repayment was not genuinely signed by him.

At the centre of the dispute is a deed of indemnity dated January 18, 2018. Cola Holdings maintains that the document required Bediako to repay his portion of a loan secured for a property development project in Accra.

However, Bediako’s legal filing challenges the authenticity of the document. He says he was in Nigeria when it was supposedly signed and suggests that an electronic copy of his signature could have been used without his knowledge or consent.

The document carries a witness signature attributed to his executive assistant at the time.

Cola Holdings is the London-based hotel and property business of the Cola family. The company owns the St Regis hotel in Mayfair, formerly known as the Westbury. Its managing director, Azad Cola, has been in business with Nana Kwame Bediako since around 2009.

The two businessmen jointly own Kensington Residential Partners 1 Ltd (KRP 1), the company behind No. 1 Oxford Street, a 108-unit serviced apartment development in Osu, Accra. Each holds a 50 percent stake in the business.

The development received part of its funding from an US$18 million loan arranged by the Cola family through the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private-sector arm of the World Bank.

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After the building opened in December 2019, its management reportedly struggled to generate enough revenue to repay the loan following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The IFC eventually demanded repayment in April 2023.

Cola Holdings says it had guaranteed the loan, settled the outstanding amount and taken over the IFC’s rights. It argues that Bediako is responsible for paying his share of the debt under the disputed deed.

This led to the January 23, 2025 judgment by the English court, which ordered Bediako to pay US$14,928,314.70, with annual interest of eight per cent.

Bediako, however, has consistently rejected the claim that he owes Cola Holdings any money.

In a statement issued in January, he said: “I have not contracted any loan from Cola Holdings Ltd, and Cola Holdings Ltd has not paid any money to me.”

He has also blamed the judgment on the failure of the UK lawyers he engaged to properly defend him in the case, saying they “did not file any processes in defence to the action”.

The dispute has also played out in Ghana’s courts, where Bediako has questioned Cola Holdings’ decision to pursue both him and KRP 1 over the same debt.

He argues that the company failed to inform the English court about a separate case it had filed against KRP 1 in Accra. He described the alleged omission as a “fraudulent misrepresentation” intended to secure “multiple recoveries of the same debt against different persons”.

Despite his objections, the Ghanaian courts have so far allowed the company to pursue enforcement of the London judgment.

The judgment was registered in Ghana on May 20, 2025. On November 27, 2025, the High Court’s Commercial Division rejected Bediako’s application to have the registration cancelled.

His subsequent attempt to stop the enforcement process while pursuing an appeal was also unsuccessful.

On July 27, 2026, Justice Doris Awuah Dabanka-Bekoe dismissed the application and ordered him to pay GH¢20,000 in costs.

The legal battle has also affected the operations of No. 1 Oxford Street.

On July 23, a court-appointed receiver, Nii Amanor Dodoo, took control of the property with police assistance.

However, on August 21, 2026, Justice John-Mark Nuku Alifo overturned the takeover, ruling that the process had violated Court of Appeal rules. He consequently ordered that the property be returned to KRP 1.

Both the receiver and Cola Holdings have since challenged the decision.

The Times further reported that No. 1 Oxford Street has since shut down, with a notice at the property informing the public that it is unable to accept reservations due to circumstances beyond its control.

Nana Kwame Bediako, who heads the Kwarleyz Group, also founded the New Force political movement.

He contested Ghana’s 2024 presidential election as an independent candidate.

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