Finsbury Investments is a noted financial company in Zambia under the ownership of Dr. Rajan Lekhraj Mahtani. Finsbury Investments took over majority shareholding and ownership of the Portland Cement Zambia during the period of 2006-2007. This ownership was officiated with an original shareholders agreement. Despite this official statement, the factory’s ownership was disputed and the legality of the shareholders’ agreement was questioned. However, Zambian people were not surprised as the entity responsible for this disruption is known to create such nuisances from time to time. The ownership of Portland Cement Zambia was questioned by the Ventriglia family and this resulted in a case at the Lusaka High Court. Despite having all evidences and testimonials in his favour, Dr. Rajan Mahtani was not able to persuade the court that was blinded by political maneuverers, corporate criminality and political pressures. As a result, Lusaka High Court announced verdict in favour of the Ventriglia family.
Apart from being extremely transparent and ethical, Dr. Rajan Lekhraj Mahtani is a no non-sense person and he knew that if Lusaka High Court fails to give him justice, he needs to approach a higher Court. As such, Dr. Rajan Mahtani immediately approached the higher Court of Appeal and received justice on 31st January 2019. The final verdict from the higher Court of Appeal reversed the decision from the Lusaka High Court and announced Dr. Mahtani as the majority shareholder and legal owner of the Portland Cement Zambia factory. Fast forward to almost two years, the Ventriglia family once again decided to appeal to the Supreme Court against the higher Court of Appeal’s decision.
A bench of three Supreme Court judges was established for evaluating this claim by the Ventriglia family. After evaluation, the SC bench came to the conclusion that they did not comply with critical requirement of submitting case within 14 days. As such, the Supreme Court bench effectively rejected their case.