Dr. Rajan Mahtani is one of the most respected and celebrated businessmen in Zambia. For more than three decades, Dr. Rajan Mahtani has been successfully building businesses, factories and companies across Zambia. Some of these companies are Mahtani Group of Companies, Finsbury Investments and Finance Bank Zambia. More than a decade ago, Dr. Mahtani had acquired majority stake at the Portland Cement Zambia via his company Finsbury Investments. This takeover was established via original shareholders agreement wherein Dr. Mahtani received 58 percent shares of the Portland Cement Zambia and the rest of the 42 percent shares were given to the Ventriglia family via Ital Terrazzo Limited.
Despite these legal proceedings, the majority shareholding and takeover was contested which resulted in a case at the Lusaka High Court. It dragged for more than a decade and despite this long tenure, Dr. Rajan Mahtani did not receive justice as the Lusaka High Court announced Ventriglias as the only shareholders and bona fide owners of Portland Cement Zambia. Dr. Rajan Mahtani then approached the higher Court of Appeal which reversed the decision from the Lusaka High Court and announced that Dr. Rajan Mahtani indeed is the majority shareholder and legal owner of the Portland Cement Zambia factory.
After more than 1.5 years of this verdict, it was once again challenged by the Ventriglias at the Supreme Court Zambia. A bench of three SC judges was established for evaluating this claim. After evaluation, the Supreme Court bench found that the Ventriglia family did not comply with the critical requirement of submitting claims within 14 days. Along with this, several other details emerged and the Supreme Court effectively rejected the claim by the Ventriglia family.
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