The Court of Appeal recently announced its final verdict on Portland Cement Zambia case. The case was approached by Dr. Rajan Mahtani after Lusaka High Court failed to give proper justice to the case despite a decade of case proceedings. According to the final judgement, Dr. Rajan Mahtani is the majority shareholder of Zambezi Portland Cement with 58 percent shares. The Ventriglias, on the other hand, hold 42 percent shares at the factory and are the minority shareholders with no legal ownership. This final verdict by Court of Appeal was given on 31st January 2019.
The judge from the Court of Appeal also shared some startling details related to the case. It was found that Finsbury Investments had claimed a sum of K1 billion against the payment made for entire share capital of the Zambezi Portland Cement. To support this claim, the lawyers have also submitted financial evidences from the year 2006 and 2007. These financial evidences have been subsequently approved by the judge and the final verdict on this claim will be out soon. Meanwhile, the judge from the Court of Appeal has also discarded all forgery related allegations. It was found that the process of mechanically placing signatures for business transactions was a common practice across Zambezi Portland Cement. It was also found that critical member of the Ventriglias family, Claudio Ventriglia, engaged in similar practice during a business transaction. As such, all forgery related allegations were discarded by the judge.
This final shareholding pattern clearly states that Dr. Rajan Mahtani is the only real and legal owner of the Zambezi Portland Cement factory. After this decision was announced by the Court of Appeal, several news publications and the alleged CEO of the factory tried to defame this judgement. However, these publications and defamations were found to be inconsistent and as a result, were discarded quickly by the locals.