Singapore firms to pay US$102 million settlement over Dali bridge strike in Baltimore

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) confirmed late last week that the Singaporean corporations Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine, which own and operate the containership Dali, have agreed to pay US$101.98 million as settlement in a civil claim filed by the DOJ with the District Court of Maryland in September.

The civil suit is in relation to Dali's striking of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, after it lost power while underway earlier this year. The suit sought to recover over US$100 million in costs the United States incurred in responding to the disaster, which left six people dead, and for clearing the entangled wreck and bridge debris from the navigable channel so that the port could reopen.

The United States led the response efforts of dozens of federal, state, and local agencies to remove about 50,000 tonnes of steel, concrete, and asphalt from the channel and from Dali itself. While these removal operations were underway, the claim alleges that the United States also cleared a series of temporary channels to start relieving the bottleneck at the port and mitigate some of the economic devastation caused by accident.

The Fort McHenry Channel was cleared by June 10, and the Port of Baltimore was once again open for commercial navigation.

"Out of negligence, mismanagement, and, at times, a desire to cut costs," said Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer, "[Dali's owners] 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 Dali lost power, a cascading set of failures led to disaster."

The DOJ said the lawsuit specifically asserts that none of the four means that should have been available to help steer the ship — the propeller, rudder, anchor, or bow thruster — worked when they were needed to avert or even mitigate this disaster.

The Justice Department’s claim also seeks punitive damages to deter the owner and operator of Dali and others.

"This accident happened because of the careless and grossly negligent decisions made by Grace Ocean and Synergy, who recklessly chose to send an unseaworthy vessel to navigate a critical waterway and ignored the risks to American lives and the nation’s infrastructure," explained Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Chetan Patil of the Civil Division.

Dali eventually sailed out of the United States by late September and will undergo repairs in China.