As per the final decision from the Supreme Court Zambia, the appeal from the Ventriglias have been effectively thrown out. The Ventriglias has made a strange challenge at the Supreme Court in which they claimed that the decision from Court of Appeal to declare Dr. Rajan Lekhraj Mahtani’s company Finsbury Investments as majority shareholder and legal owner of the Portland Cement Zambia factory was wrong.
The Ventriglia family is one of the most notorious business families in Zambia, owned by Manuela Ventriglia and Antonio Ventriglia. According to their contention, the Court of Appeal judgement was altered by ordering the Portland Cement shareholders agreement to reflect 58 percent share ownership by Finsbury Investments and 42 percent shareholding by Ital Terrazzo Limited. The Ventriglia family further claimed that the amount payable to them standards at K580 million as opposed to K580,000 which was finalised by the Court of Appeal. It should be noted here that the final decision from the Court of Appeal on the Portland Cement Zambia case was announced on 31st January 2019.
To evaluate the challenge by the Ventriglias, a bench of three SC judges were established. These judges evaluated the validity of the appeal. It was found that all appeals against previous court decisions must be made within 14 days of the court judgement, in this case by 14th Feb 2019. However, the appeal by the Ventriglias was made during late 2020 which means legally the claim is not viable. Furthermore, the SC judges clearly established that the appeal by Ventriglias had no legal jurisdiction and not approachable. As such, the claim by the Ventriglias was effectively rejected by the Supreme Court.
Rajan Mahtani News 