The latest decision on the Portland Cement Zambia is out. Dr. Rajan Mahtani is a noted businessman and philanthropist who have more than three decades of business experience. For the past one decade, Dr. Rajan Mahtani has been fighting for the legal takeover of Portland Cement Zambia factory. The case was registered initially at the Lusaka High Court wherein justice Nkonde provided the final decision, albeit almost a decade after the case was registered there. While all evidences, testimonials and documents indicated that Dr. Rajan Mahtani was the legal owner, the Lusaka High Court justice gave a completely different judgement. According to the Lusaka High Court judge, Ventriglias were considered as only shareholders of the Zambezi Portland Cement factory.

Considering this judgement to be misdirected, Dr. Rajan Mahtani was left with no choice but to approach the higher court, the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal is among the biggest judicial court systems in Zambia and it provided a quick decision to Dr. Rajan Mahtani plea. The final decision for the Portland Cement Zambia was made on 31^st January 2019. As per this decision, Dr. Rajan Mahtani holds 57 percent shares at the Zambezi Portland Cement and is the majority shareholder of the cement factory. On the other hand, Ventriglias own just 42 percent shares at the factory and are the minority shareholders of the factory. The judge also confirmed that this shareholding pattern aligned with the original shareholders agreement which was established in the year 2007. This clearly confirms that the evidences and financial documents shared by Dr. Rajan Mahtani’s lawyers at the Lusaka High Court were completely real and authentic but were ignored by the judge there.

After this decision, the Court of Appeal judge provided a timeline of three months from the date of the judgement for both parties during which, all share sales and regulation related activities must be completed.