MARYLAND - Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown announced Tuesday that the state has finalized a $2.25 billion settlement with the owner and operator of the cargo ship M/V Dali over the 2024 collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
The settlement resolves claims against Grace Ocean Private Limited and Synergy Marine Pte Ltd., the companies that owned and operated the Dali when it struck the bridge on March 26, 2024.
“The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge sent shockwaves through Maryland and caused damages on a scale this State had never seen,” said Attorney General Anthony G. Brown. “This $2.25 billion settlement reflects the full measure of accountability we were able to secure from the vessel interests -- and our pursuit of justice is not finished. We will continue to press our claims against the shipbuilder whose fault helped bring this bridge down.”
The settlement covers claims brought by the Maryland Attorney General’s Office on behalf of several state agencies, including the Maryland Transportation Authority, Maryland Port Administration and Maryland Department of the Environment.
The agreement does not resolve Maryland’s separate claims against shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries. According to the National Transportation Safety Board’s final report released in November 2025, a loose signal wire in the Dali’s electrical control center caused the ship’s power failure before the deadly crash. The report found the disaster was preventable and identified HHI as bearing fault in the blackout.
However, HHI responded to the legal action, saying the Justice Department’s criminal indictment confirms many of Synergy’s failures and further shows that Synergy attempted to conceal evidence of its wrongdoing and obstruct the NTSB’s investigation into the matter.
“When HHI delivered the ship nearly 10 years before the allision, there was no indication that any wire was loose. Instead, as the Justice Department noted, ‘Consistent with the law governing commercial vessels and accepted engineering practices, the M/V Dali was built with automated redundancies that enabled the vessel to quickly recover from a power loss.’ Even if a wire were to become loose over the course of a decade, Grace Ocean and Synergy should have detected that in a routine inspection and through normal maintenance. More importantly, as the DOJ said in its criminal indictment, ‘If the M/V Dali had used the proper fuel supply and booster pumps, then the vessel would have regained power in time to safely navigate under the Key Bridge,’” said HHI.
Six construction workers were killed when the bridge collapsed: Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, Jose Mynor Lopez, Carlos Hernández, Miguel Angel Luna Gonzalez and Maynor Yasir Suazo Sandoval. Two other workers were hurt.
The collapse shut down shipping traffic at the Port of Baltimore for weeks, disrupted businesses and commuters and caused widespread economic impacts across Maryland.
State officials said the ship companies previously attempted to limit their liability to about $43.7 million under a federal maritime law that ties liability to the post-disaster value of a vessel. Maryland challenged that effort while pursuing damages tied to the bridge collapse and related economic losses.
Brown said the state will continue pursuing legal action against Hyundai Heavy Industries.
