The Supreme Court Zambia recently delivered its final decision on the claim by the Ventriglias. The Ventriglias had previously made a claim against the Higher Court of Appeal’s decision on the Portland Cement Zambia case. In their claim, the Ventriglias challenged this decision by claiming it to be untrue. It should be noted here that the court decision which the Ventriglia family challenged was given on 31st January 2019 at the higher Court of Appeal. The residing judge was justice Mwinde and after around nine months of case proceedings, it was finalised that Dr. Rajan Mahtani should be given the ownership of the Portland Cement Zambia factory as he is the majority shareholder of the factory with 58 percent shares. The court further clarified the amount payable to the Ventriglias which was K580,000,
The Ventriglias challenged this decision more than 15 months later and as a result, it certainly generated suspicions among the court members. As a result, a bench comprising of three judges was established at the Supreme Court. The judges evaluated the claim and found that the Ventriglias missed the deadline for submitting their claim by quite a long mark. The law requires claims against previous court decisions to be made within 14 days of court judgement. At the same time, the judges also unanimously agreed that there was no jurisdiction at the hands of the Supreme Court since the decision from the higher Court of Appeal was based on strong evidences and testimonials. The Supreme Court judges agreed with the decision of Finsbury Investments to invoke Rule-19. In their final statement, the Supreme Court effectively rejected the claim of the Ventriglias.
