Ms. Joana Quaye, the ex-wife of Ghanaian businessman and self-acclaimed billionaire Richard Nii Armah Quaye, has filed an application for injunction at the Divorce and Matrimonial Division of the High Court in Accra seeking to restrain him from selling, transferring, disposing of or in any way alienating shares in a long list of companies, luxury vehicles, and expensive properties until an appeal over their divorce settlement is finally determined.
The embattled ex-wife of RNAQ is asking the court to temporarily ‘freeze’ the disputed assets and shares owned by the couple in various companies acquired during the course of the marriage in order to prevent the businessman from disposing of them before the Court of Appeal decides whether she is entitled to a larger share of the wealth acquired during their marriage.
Contribution to the formation of business
In an explosive affidavit in support of an application filed on her behalf by Dame & Partners, her new lawyers, Joana Quaye narrates a relationship that stretches back to 2002, when both parties had just completed secondary school, and eventually culminates in marriage in 2010.
She claims she sacrificed her education, worked multiple jobs, and financially supported Richard Nii Armah Quaye’s studies and early entrepreneurial ambitions, including funding that helped launch Quick Credit Company Limited, now Bills Micro-Credit.
Relying on documents she had earlier tendered at the trial as exhibits, Joana Quaye indicated that in anticipation of their marriage, she opened a joint account with RNAQ at SG-SSB Ltd and subsequently, jointly invested the funds from that account in an investment transaction operated by Data Bank Ltd.
This investment matured and was redeemed by the couple in 2008, and the proceeds were given to RNAQ, who used them to fund his travel to the United Kingdom in 2008 to pursue further education in accounting.
According to Joana Quaye, when RNAQ returned from the UK the following year in 2009, he was unemployed. They started exploring ways to set up a business for him.
She closed her personal bank account by withdrawing all her savings, and they used the same as seed money to start a micro-finance enterprise in 2010 – the same year in which they got married – which the couple named Quick Credit, within six months after the Respondent had returned from the UK.
History of ownership of shares in companies
Joana Quaye further stated that, a year after they had gotten married, in 2011, they jointly set up a company called Quick Micro Credit and Investment Limited (which RNAQ subsequently unilaterally renamed Bills Micro Credit).
Together with RNAQ, she was an original shareholder in Quick Micro Credit and Investment Limited. She was also, together with RNAQ, one of the two directors of the company.
According to Joana Quaye, without her knowledge or consent, RNAQ altered the company’s records by removing her as both a director and a shareholder around 2021. Mrs. Quaye alleges that RNAQ admitted this under cross-examination in the course of the trial of the divorce case.
In her view, therefore, the “conclusions of the learned judge were arbitrary, discriminatory and a complete departure from the principles governing the equitable distribution of marital property upon the dissolution of marriage”.
According to her, all assets acquired in the subsistence of marriage, including shares in companies, are marital property liable to be “distributed equitably, irrespective of whether there was an agreement between the parties or not.”
The application lists an eye-popping catalog of disputed assets, including shareholding interests in Quick Credit, Quick Angels, Waterfall Engineering, Tigon Entertainment, Ridge Medical Center, CEQA Foods, and several other companies.
Also named are luxury homes at Trassacco Estates, East Legon, Dansoman, and Mamprobi, alongside a fleet of high-end vehicles, including a Rolls-Royce Phantom, a Bentley Coupe, a Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon, a Range Rover Vogue, a Range Rover Velar, and a Lexus 4×4.
Joana Quaye argues that these assets were acquired during the subsistence of the marriage and therefore ought to be equitably distributed. She seeks to restrain RNAQ from disposing of or transferring them before the final determination of her appeal.
Justification for the freeze of RNAQ’s shares in other companies
Mrs. Quaye contends that the formation of Quick Credit by the couple and their joint ownership of shares in that company was “the springboard for RNAQ’s wealth and acquisition of various properties by him”.
According to her, RNAQ used Quick Credit and Quick Angels to acquire other companies. He also “deployed the companies as a vehicle for the acquisition of various immovable and movable properties”.
She claimed that most of the vehicles acquired during the marriage are in the names of companies owned by RNAQ and other companies, which are, in turn, owned by companies set up during the subsistence of the marriage.
Mrs. Quaye urges the court that there is a pressing need for the court to restrain RNAQ from disposing of the assets because he has demonstrated an ability to unlawfully transfer assets acquired during marriage.
She cites his act in transferring her shares in Quick Credit Limited, without her knowledge, as an example, emphasizing that she became aware only when RNAQ admitted this fact under cross-examination in court
Joana Quaye accuses the businessman of having caused the breakdown of the marriage through “unbridled cheating with many women” and that she suffered severe physical violence during the marriage.
She further alleges that complaints she lodged with the Ghana Police Service never saw the “light of day” due to interference by powerful persons allegedly acting on behalf of the RNAQ.
In another bombshell claim, she states that the RNAQ currently lives in the Trassacco residence with another woman whom she describes as one of several girlfriends maintained during the marriage.
Unfairness and violations by the trial judge
The affidavit of Mrs. Quaye also raises serious procedural and constitutional questions about the original divorce judgment delivered on the 20th January 2026.
According to Joana Quaye, the full written judgment was unavailable for more than three months and only surfaced after her constitutional right of appeal had expired.
She argues that there appeared to be “two versions” of the judgment, one containing the final orders and another containing the reasons for the orders released after the expiry of the three-month period within which she was entitled to appeal, a situation she says violated her constitutional rights.
She laments that, if her new lawyers, Dame & Partners, had not promptly appealed when the full judgment was unavailable, she would have suffered irremediable damage.
Joana Quaye is asking the High Court to preserve all the contested assets pending appeal, warning that any transfer or disposal of the properties could cause irreparable injustice and leave her with an “empty legal shell” even if she eventually wins the appeal.
The high-profile dispute is expected to ignite national debate over marital property, women’s contributions to wealth creation in marriages, and the extent to which spouses are entitled to fortunes accumulated during long-term relationships.
