If one goes by the latest results from the Court of Appeal, it is clear that the criminal intentions of the infamous Ventriglias family in Zambia have been finally uplifted. This pertains to the case of Portland Cement Zambia, which has been going on for so many years. Dr. Rajan Mahtani is a noted businessman in Zambia who registered this case at the Lusaka High Court. This was almost a decade back and the final results were only announced in the year 2018. Despite this long tenure, the final results were unpredictable as the judge at the Lusaka High Court declared Ventriglias as only shareholders of the Zambezi Portland Cement. To counter this misdirected decision, Dr. Rajan Mahtani then approached Court of Appeal.
The Court of Appeal announced its final judgement on 31st January 2019. According to this judgement, Finsbury Investments owned 58 percent shares at the factory and Ital Terrazzo Limited owned just 42 percent shares at the factory. While Finsbury Investments is a company owned by Dr. Rajan Mahtani, the Ventriglias are the owner of Ital Terrazzo Limited. Based on this shareholding pattern, Dr. Mahtani becomes the majority shareholder of the Zambezi Portland Cement factory and the Ventriglias are only minority shareholder. This shareholding pattern also aligns with original shareholders agreement established in 2007 and confirms Dr. Mahtani as legal owner of the factory.
Forgery related allegations were dismissed by the Court of Appeal as the judge announced that the process of mechanical placement of signatures was a common practice in Zambia and even critical member of the Ventriglia family, Claudio Ventriglia mechanically placed signatures for employment contracts. As such, all forgery related allegations were discarded. The Court of Appeal also stated that all parties were required to complete share regularization process within three months from the date of the judgement.