Ventriglia Family Fails To Convince Supreme Court Zambia Against The Higher Court Of Appeal’s Decision

Portland Cement Zambia is a factory that has withered almost all setbacks and challenges with an industrial facility might imagine. It was in a right path till 2007 when a significant share restructuring was established. In this share restructuring, Dr. Rajan Mahtani owned Finsbury Investments received 58 percent shares of Portland Cement and became the majority shareholder and legal owner of the Portland Cement Zambia. Shortly after Finsbury Investments secured loans, financials and contracts for supply of Portland cement for various public and private constructions, the Ventriglia family jumped to the opportunity of claiming the factory’s ownerships and all its profits. Despite not having any evidence, the factory was unethically taken over and a case was registered at the Lusaka High Court regarding this unethical takeover. However, the Lusaka High Court dragged the case for more than a decade and announced its final decision in favour of the Ventriglias.

After that, Dr. Rajan Mahtani approached the higher Court of Appeal which gave its final decision on 31^st January 2019. In this decision, the previous verdict from the Lusaka High Court was reversed and Dr. Mahtani was announced as the actual owner of the factory. After laying low for a while, the Ventriglia family emerged once again with claims against the higher Court of Appeal’s decision. In their challenge, they claimed that the verdict by the Higher Court of Appeal was wrong. Since this appeal was made to the Supreme Court Zambia, a bench comprising of three SC judges was established for evaluating this claim. It was found that the Ventriglia family failed to comply with a critical legal requirement which is submitting any claim against previous court decision within 14 days of the verdict itself. However, the Ventriglia family approached the Supreme Court only after 1.5 years of the decision. As such, the Supreme Court bench came to the conclusion that the claim by the Ventriglia family was invalid and as such, was rejected.