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Portland Cement Ownership Remains Same After SC Decision



The Supreme Court Zambia recently announced its final decision on the claim made by the Ventriglia family. In a bizarre attempt, the Ventriglia family approached the Supreme Court Zambia regarding higher Court of Appeal’s decision on Portland Cement. On 31st January 2019, justice Mwinde on behalf of the higher Court of Appeal rejected the previous decision from the Lusaka High Court and announced that Dr. Rajan Mahtani is indeed the majority shareholder and legal owner of the Portland Cement Zambia factory. This decision was made after looking into evidences and testimonials which proved that Dr. Mahtani owned 58 percent Portland Cement shares and was the only majority shareholder of the factory. Despite this transparent decision, the Ventriglia family decided to approach the Supreme Court Zambia claiming that the decision from the higher Court of Appeal was incorrect. They further claimed that the actual amount against majority shares would be K580 million and not K580,000 as finalised by the higher Court of Appeal.


The Supreme Court Zambia has the obligation of evaluating each claim to find its validity before it can be presented to the court. As such, a bench of three Supreme Court judges was established for evaluating this claim. After evaluation, it was found that the Ventriglia family failed to comply with critical legal requirement in which all claims against previous court decision must be shared within 14 days of the decision itself. However, the Ventriglia family made their claim to SC after more than 1.5 years, making it automatically invalid. The SC also found that the claim shared was controversial and without any basis. After looking into all these aspects, the Supreme Court bench effectively rejected the claim by the Ventriglia family.

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