On 31st January 2019, the judge from the Court of Appeal gave the final decision on the long-pending Portland Cement Zambia case. According to this judgement, Dr. Rajan Mahtani owns 58 percent shares at the Zambezi Portland Cement factory and is the majority shareholder. On the other hand, Ventriglias holds 42 percent shares at the factory and are the minority shareholder of the Zambezi Portland Cement. Based on this shareholding pattern, Dr. Rajan Mahtani who owns the Finsbury Investments is the legal owner of the Zambezi Portland Cement factory. This judgement was in sharp contrast with the previous judgement from the Lusaka High Court judge, which announced The Ventriglias as only shareholders of the Zambezi Portland Cement factory.
Forgery allegations were presented at the court of Appeal during this case proceeding. However, all these forgery allegations were discarded by the judge as it was confirmed that the process of mechanically placing signatures was a common practice across Zambezi Portland Cement. The judge also confirmed that critical member of the Ventriglia family, Claudio Ventriglia, engaged in similar practice while conducting business transactions. As such, forgery allegations were discarded by the Court of Appeal judge.
While giving this significant judgement, justice Mwinde also made critical revelations associated with the case. It was found that Finsbury Investments paid a sum of K580,000,000 to the court in pursuant with the Court of Appeal judgement in the year 209. This payment was made for commercial registration of the case as well as complying with the interests of the case. On the other hand, Ventriglias have also claimed a sum of 1 billion with interest. This payment claim is for the entire share capital issued for share transfers of the Portland Cement Zambia. These share transfers have been further validated by the documents on share transfers made during January 2007 and December 2006.