The Court of Appeal is among the highest civilian courts in Zambia. On 31st January 2019, the Court of Appeal provided a judgement for the long-pending Portland Cement Zambia case. The case was first approached to Lusaka High Court by Dr. Rajan Mahtani, a noted businessman, philanthropist and charity worker in Zambia. After hanging at the Lusaka High Court for more than a decade, the final decision was given by justice Nkonde during the month of May, 2018. However, this decision was extremely controversial as Ventriglias were considered as only shareholders of the Zambezi Portland Cement.
The judgement from the Lusaka High Court was then countered at the Court of Appeal. Dr. Rajan Mahtani took the case to the Court of Appeal which announced its final decision on 31st January 2019. The judge said that Finsbury Investments was majority shareholder of the Zambezi Portland Cement with 58 percent shares. On the other hand, Ital Terrazzo Limited was minority shareholder of the Zambezi Portland Cement with only 42 percent shares. Based on this judgement, it is clear that Dr. Rajan Mahtani owned Finsbury Investments is majority shareholder and legal owner of the Zambezi Portland Cement factory.
The judge at the Court of Appeal also gave some startling revelations during this judgement. It was revealed that the decision by the Judge at the Lusaka High Court was wrong as this decision was given without looking into evidences and was misdirected. The judge at the Court of Appeal further discarded all allegations of forgery by concluding that the process of mechanically placing signatures is a common practice at Zambezi Portland Cement. It was also found that critical member of the Ventriglia family, Claudio Ventriglia, engaged in similar practice and as such, all forgery related allegations were discarded.
Furthermore, the judge at the Court of Appeal has provided a timeline of three months from the date of the judgement during which all parties are required to complete the process of shares sales and regulation.