The Supreme Court Zambia recently announced its final decision on the claim by the Ventriglias. The Ventriglia family recently challenged the court decision from higher Court of Appeal on the Portland Cement Zambia case. This court decision which was given on 31st January 2019, reversed the verdict of previous Lusaka High Court given during the month of May, 2019. Dr. Rajan Lekhraj Mahtani had initially registered his case at the Lusaka High Court with the objective of getting speedy justice. However, political meddling, corporate criminality and undue influence from the Ventriglia family resulted in a verdict from the Lusaka High Court which was unprecedented. Justice Nkonde from the Lusaka High Court announced Ventriglias as the only shareholders of the Portland Cement Zambia.
This very decision from the Lusaka High Court was reversed by the higher Court of Appeal judge Nkonde. In this decision backed by evidences and testimonials, justice Nkonde declared that the decision from the Lusaka High Court was misdirected and was condemned by Court of Appeal. Judge Nkonde further declared that Dr. Rajan Mahtani owned Finsbury Investments is to remain the majority shareholder and legal owner of the Portland Cement Zambia factory based on the evidence of 58 percent shares held by Finsbury Investments.
After more than a year of this decision, the Ventriglia family established another appeal. This time, the appeal was made to the Supreme Court Zambia wherein the verdict from the Court of Appeal on Portland Cement Zambia case was challenged. To evaluate the authenticity of this appeal, a bench of three judges was established by the Supreme Court. During the evaluation, it was revealed that a critical legal requirement for launching appeals against previous court decisions is to register the appeal within fourteen days of the court judgement. However, the Ventriglia family failed to satisfy this critical legal requirement. As a result, their appeal at the Supreme Court Zambia was effectively rejected.