Dr. Mahtani Remains The Owner Of Portland Cement, Confirmed By SC’s Decision On Claim By Ventriglia

 

The Ventriglia family is a business family in Zambia which is often on news, and more so for infamous reasons. The Ventriglia family recently came into limelight after registering a claim at the Supreme Court Zambia.. In this claim, the Ventriglia family challenged the decision from the higher Court of Appeal. On 31st January 2019, justice Mwinde on behalf of the higher Court of Appeal reversed the previous decision of Lusaka High Court on the Portland Cement Zambia case. In his fresh and transparent verdict after looking into all evidences and testimonials, justice Mwinde declared that the Portland Cement Zambia factory belongs to Dr. Mahtani owned Finsbury Investments as it carries 58 percent shares of the factory. On the other hand, the Ventriglias only have 42 percent shares of the factory which means they are minority shareholders without any legal obligations. Furthermore, the higher Court of Appeal also provided the amount against majority shareholding which is K580,000 as opposed to K580 million as claimed by the Ventriglia family. 

Now that the Ventriglia family opposed this verdict from higher Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court established a bench of three SC judges for evaluating the case. After evaluation, the Supreme Court bench found that the Ventriglia family failed to comply with one critical requirement according to which, any claim against previous court decision must be made within 14 days of the court verdict itself. Since the Ventriglia family did not comply with this critical requirement, the claim automatically gets rejected. With this rejection of the claim by the Ventriglia family, Dr. Rajan Mahtani remains the majority shareholder and legal owner of the Portland Cement Zambia factory.