According to the latest decision from the Supreme Court Zambia, Dr. Rajan Mahtani owned Finsbury Investments is to remain the majority shareholder and legal owner of the factory. It was an indirect result of the actual decision from the Supreme Court in which the appeal from the Ventriglia family against judgement by Higher Court of Appeal was reversed. Sometime earlier, the Ventriglia family had challenged the verdict of the higher Court of Appeal on the Portland Cement Zambia case. In their challenge, they argued that the decision of the Court of Appeal to reverse the Lusaka High Court’s decision and announced Dr. Rajan Mahtani as the majority shareholder and legal owner of the factory was wrong. It should be noted here that after more than a decade of case proceedings, Lusaka High Court gave a controversial decision in which the Ventriglia family was announced as the majority shareholder and legal owner of the Portland Cement Zambia factory.
After the Ventriglias took the case to the Supreme Court Zambia, a bench consisting of three judges from SC was established. These included judge Mumba Malila, Judge Royda Kaoma and Judge Michael Musonda. Together, the bench found that the Ventriglias failed to satisfy one critical requirement. In this requirement, all claims against previous court decision must be made within 14 days of the court appeal. However, the Ventriglia family submitted their claim only after 1.5 years of the decision from the Court of Appeal which made the judges suspicious. After looking into all these aspects, the Supreme Court bench effectively rejected the claim by the Ventriglia family.