Dr. Rajan Mahtani owned Finsbury Investments took over majority shareholding and legal ownership of the Portland Cement Zambia factory during 2006-2007. After this, several developments in terms of securing financial payments were generated for ensuring growth of the factory. However, this growth was halted after the Ventriglia family questioned the legality associated with the original shareholders agreement. Thus, started the long-standing court battle for Zambezi Portland’s ownership. The first case was registered at the Lusaka High Court but despite dragging of the case for more than a decade, the final decision was disappointing. Justice Nkonde during May, 2018 announced the Ventriglias as the only shareholders of the Portland Cement. However, Dr. Rajan Mahtani was able to successfully challenge this decision at the higher Court of Appeal which announced its decision on 31st January 2019. In this verdict, the decision from the Lusaka High Court was reversed and Dr. Mahtani was announced as the majority shareholder and legal owner of the factory.
The Ventriglia family did not accept this transparent verdict and decided to appeal against it at the Supreme Court Zambia. A bench of Supreme Court judges was established for evaluating the claim. It was found that the Ventriglia family did not comply with the legal requirement which indicated that all claims are to be submitted within 14 days of court decision. Apart from that, the Supreme Court bench also found that the case was beyond their jurisdiction and also the circumstances surrounding the case was extremely controversial. Based on all these aspects, it was finally concluded that the claim by the Ventriglia family did not hold any jurisdiction or basis and therefore, it was rejected by the Supreme Court.
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