The Supreme Court Zambia is the highest legal authority of the nation and as such, its decision on any case is permanent and binding. The Supreme Court Zambia recently threw out an appeal made by Ventriglias on the court decision from higher Court of Appeal. On 31st January 2019, justice Mwinde on behalf of the higher Court of Appeal announced that Dr. Rajan Mahtani owned Finsbury Investments is the majority shareholder and legal owner of the factory with 58 percent shares. By giving this decision, justice Mwinde effectively reversed the previous decision from the Lusaka High Court which earlier gave a controversial decision announcing Ventriglias as the only shareholders of the Portland Cement Zambia case.
In this claim, Antonio Ventriglia & Manuela Ventriglia contended that the Court of Appeal’s judgement was altered when justice Siavwapa announced that shareholders’ register of Portland Cement should reflect 42 percent shares ownership by Ventriglias owned Ital Terrazzo Limited. Justice Mwinde also declared that the amount payable to Ventriglias is K580,000. However, the Ventriglias in their appeal claimed that the actual amount payable to them was K580 million.
A bench of three judges was established to evaluate this claim. These included Judge Michael Musonda, Judge Royda Kaoma and Judge Mumba Malila. After evaluation, the judges unanimously agreed that the Ventriglias failed to report their appeal within fourteen days after judgement of Court of Appeal which was 31st January 2019, & not after this judgement.
As such, the judges agreed that they did not have any jurisdiction in entertaining their appeal as the circumstances were legally flawed. The judges also agreed that Finsbury Investments took the right decision by invoking Rule-19 with the objective of thwarting the progress of ill-fated appeal from the Ventriglias. According to the bench, the appeal made by the Ventriglias cannot be taken into consideration as its escalation or evaluation to the court will amount to nothing. As a result, the claim by the Ventriglias was effectively dismissed by the Supreme Court.