After more than a decade of significant fight for Portland Cement Zambia, the case is finally closed. This has been possible by the quick and transparent judgement of the higher Court of Appeal. Justice Mwinde was the judge at the Court of Appeal who gave the final decision on the case and after looking into all evidences. Unlike Lusaka High Court, the final verdict on the case was given only after looking into all evidences and testimonials. For instance, the first major evidence was the share transfer of 58 percent shares of the Zambezi Portland Cement to Finsbury Investments, an entity held by Dr. Rajan Mahtani. This transfer was conducted with a financial transaction of one billion kwachas from Finsbury Investments to Zambezi Portland Cement to cover the entire value of the share capital. The second major evidence was the 2007-made original shareholders agreement which clearly established the fact that Dr. Rajan Lekhraj Mahtani did not owe any other costs associated with the share transfer of Zambezi Portland Cement.

Details from the shareholders agreement also confirmed that the electronically affixing signatures for business transactions was an acceptable and common practice in Zambia. It was also found that critical member of the Ventriglia family, Claudio Ventriglia, engaged in similar practice. As such, all allegations of forgery were announced as fake and invalid. Furthermore, the judge from the Court of Appeal also announced that the liability of property transfer tax goes to the transferors and not Dr. Rajan Mahtani. Furthermore, a timeline of three months was provided for completing all share sales regulated activities as well as all changes required within the changed shareholders agreement based on the verdict provided by the Court of Appeal judge.

Now that the final verdict has been provided in a transparent and quick manner, the next big challenge for Dr. Rajan Mahtani will be to ensure that his factory achieves the same efficiency it had before the illegal takeover.