BREAKING: Owner, operator of ship that took down Francis Scott Key Bridge to pay $101 MILLION in settlement with DOJ

The operators of the Dali, the cargo ship that struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge in March prompting its collapse, have agreed to pay over $100 million in a settlement with the Department of Justice. 

Grace Ocean Private Limited and Synergy Marine Private Limited, both Singaporean companies that owned and operated the ship, have agreed to pay $101,908,000 to resolve a civil claim brought forth in September seeking to reimburse the public funds used to respond to the March 2024 disaster and repair the bridge, the DOJ announced in a press release. The department said that the funds from the settlement "will go to the US Treasury and to the budgets of several federal agencies directly affected by the allision or involved in the response."

In the early hours of March 26, the Dali left port in Baltimore bound for Sri Lanka when it experienced multiple power failures. After the second loss of power, the vessel struck one of the bridge’s supports, resulting in the bridge plummeting into the water. Six people were killed in the collapse. In the wake of the collapse, the wreckage of both the Dali and the bridge blocked the Port of Baltimore, and I-695, a major roadway in Baltimore, was severed.

Around 50,000 tons of steel, concrete, and asphalt were removed from the Fort McHenry Channel and from the Dali, and by June 10 the channel was cleared and the port reopened.

"We allege that the Dali’s owner and operator recklessly cut corners in ways that risked lives and the economic well-being of the nation,” said Justice Department lawyer Benjamin C. Mizer when the lawsuit was launched in September. "Out of negligence, mismanagement, and, at times, a desire to cut costs, they configured the ship’s electrical and mechanical systems in a way that prevented those systems from being able to quickly restore propulsion and steering after a power outage. As a result, when the DALI lost power, a cascading set of failures led to disaster.”

The Wednesday press release noted that the settlement "does not include any damages for the reconstruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge," and that "The State of Maryland built, owned, maintained, and operated the bridge, and attorneys on the state’s behalf filed their own claim for those damages."