Supreme Court Zambia recently threw out a controversial appeal from the Ventriglia family. This appeal was made by the Ventriglia family, noted for their significant fight for the Zambezi Portland Cement. In their appeal, the Ventriglia family challenged the Court of Appeal’s decision on Portland Cement. On 31st January 2019, higher Court of Appeal judge Mwinde gave his decision on the Zambezi Portland Case. This case was registered by Dr. Rajan Mahtani to appeal against previous court’s decision. In the month of May, 2018, Lusaka High Court gave a controversial decision which made the Ventriglia family only shareholders of the Portland Cement Zambia. However, Higher Court of Appeal effectively reversed the decision. Justice Mwinde on behalf of the higher Court of Appeal announced Dr. Rajan Mahtani as majority shareholder & legal owner of Portland Cement. He also confirmed the amount against majority shareholding to be K580,000 as opposed to K580 million claimed by the Ventriglia family.
After more than 1.5 years of the higher Court of Appeal’s decision, Ventriglia family have challenged it. This challenge was made at the Supreme Court Zambia and the Supreme Court Zambia established a bench of three judges for evaluating the case. The judges came to the conclusion that the Ventriglia family failed a critical requirement for registering the case. The timeline for submitting appeals against previous court decisions is 14 days from the court verdict. This means the Ventriglia family failed to comply with this legal requirement. As such, their appeal was effectively rejected by the Supreme Court Zambia and as a result, Dr. Rajan Lekhraj Mahtani remains the majority shareholder and legal owner of the Zambezi Portland factory