$102M settlement reached With DOJ in Baltimore bridge collapse
It will cost at least $1.7 billion to replace the Key Bridge by 2028, according to Maryland's claim.
Law firms Duane Morris and Blank Rome have reached a $102 million settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice on behalf of the operators of the Dali cargo ship that struck and destroyed an iconic Baltimore bridge in March.
U.S. attorneys and counsel for Singapore-based Grace Ocean Private Ltd. and Synergy Marine Group filed the notice of settlement late Thursday afternoon in Maryland federal court.
“This resolution ensures that the costs of the federal government’s cleanup efforts in the Fort McHenry Channel are borne by Grace Ocean and Synergy and not the American taxpayer,” Benjamin C. Mizer, principal deputy associate attorney general, said Thursday in a press statement.
Another Justice Department official, Brian M. Boynton, described the settlement as a “tremendous outcome that fully compensates the United States for the costs it incurred in responding to this disaster.”
At least 45 parties have filed timely claims against Grace Ocean and Synergy following the March 26 collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge that killed six highway maintenance workers.
Duane Morris and Blank Rome on behalf of the international shipping companies filed a petition in Maryland federal court April 1 seeking exoneration or limited liability for any losses or damage caused by the deadly incident. The companies in their petition expressed a willingness to pay nearly $44 million or an open-ended “stipulation with sufficient surety” to the court.
The Justice Department said the settlement resolves its claims seeking more than $103 million in civil damages and that the settlement funds will go to the U.S. Treasury and the federal agencies directed affected by the bridge collapse.
U.S. District Senior Judge James K. Bredar ordered all parties in this litigation to “meet and confer in advance” and file a joint status report ahead of an Oct. 29 status and scheduling conference.
A joint status report filed Tuesday shows the shipping companies oppose two class actions in the case, describing those claims as “fundamentally improper on several grounds” and “violative of basic principles underlying a limitation of liability action.”
All of the claimants seeking damages in the bridge collapse agree Grace Ocean and Synergy “are not entitled to exoneration or limitation of liability,” according to the joint status report. “The Claimants have self-ordered and stand ready to litigate cooperatively toward that end.”
It will cost at least $1.7 billion to replace the Key Bridge by 2028, according to Maryland’s claim, which seeks damages and statutory penalties for alleged environmental violations. The estimated rebuilding costs are far greater than the $350 million Maryland received in compensation from its bridge insurance policy.