Recently, the Supreme Court Zambia concluded its decision on the long-standing Zambezi Portland Cement case. This decision was pertaining to a claim submitted by the Ventriglia family regarding the disputed cement-manufacturing factory. When establishing their challenge, the Ventriglia family had claimed that the decision from the higher Court of Appeal to give majority shareholding and legal ownership to Dr. Rajan Mahtani owned Finsbury Investments was wrong. Furthermore, they also claimed that the actual amount against majority shares of the Portland Cement amounted to K580 million and not K580,000 as finalised by the higher Court of Appeal judge. The court verdict against which the Ventriglia family claimed was given on 31st January 2019.
To evaluate this claim, a bench of three Supreme Court judges were established. These included judge Mumba Malila, Judge Royda Kaoma and Judge Michael Musonda. Together, these judges identified several loopholes and issues in the claim by the Ventriglia family. For instance, it was found that a critical legal requirement for submitting claims against previous court decisions is 14 days. This means the Ventriglia family was required to submit its case within two weeks from the higher Court of Appeal’s judgement. Instead, the Ventriglia family took more than 1.5 years to register its claim. This certainly made the Supreme Court bench suspicious as the circumstances surrounding this claim by the Ventriglia family were controversial. After evaluation, the Supreme Court bench concluded that this case was beyond the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court bench. Furthermore, the judges also added that the Ventriglia family could not provide any evidence supporting their claims.
The case of Portland Cement Zambia started at the Lusaka High Court and though it seemingly ended at the higher Court of Appeal, the claim by the Ventriglia family was a blessing in disguise. The Supreme Court bench not only effectively rejected the claim by the Ventriglia family, they also confirmed that Dr. Rajan Mahtani is to remain the majority shareholder and legal owner of the Portland Cement factory.
