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Judge dismisses Dali owner’s lawsuit against shipbuilder over Key Bridge collapse

By CNN

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    BALTIMORE (WJZ) — A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Dali’s owner and operator, which alleged that the ship’s builder, Hyundai Heavy Industries, designed a dangerous ship that crashed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge in 2024, killing six construction workers.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania by Grace Ocean Private Limited, the Dali’s owner, and Synergy Marine Private Limited, its manager, claimed the ship had a simple but dangerous defect that caused the electrical system to lose power.

The lawsuit alleged that a label positioned too close to the end of a critical cable detached, causing a circuit breaker to open. Without electrical power, the ship lost steering capability and struck the bridge.

“Hyundai Heavy Industries defectively designed the switchboard,” the lawsuit stated.

The Dali experienced four blackouts in less than 12 hours before colliding with the Key Bridge on March 26, 2024, according to a report by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

Last week, attorneys representing the owners and operators of the Dali pleaded not guilty to all counts in a criminal case brought by federal prosecutors against the companies.

Last May, federal prosecutors charged both companies, and a 47-year-old man who was the Dali’s superintendent, with conspiracy, obstruction, and making false statements to investigators.

In June, federal prosecutors filed additional criminal charges in the deadly 2024 Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse. The chief engineer of the Dali was charged with violations of the Port and Waterways Safety Act. Karthikeyan Deenadayalan is accused of knowingly and willfully failing to notify the U.S. Coast Guard about hazardous conditions on the ship.

The federal indictment charged Synergy Marine’s with conspiracy to defraud the United States, failing to inform the U.S. Coast Guard of a known hazardous condition, misconduct or neglect by ship officers causing death, false statements and obstructing an agency proceeding.

Federal prosecutors accuse the owners and operators of the ship of improperly using a “flushing pump” to supply diesel to two of the Dali’s generators, rather than normal fuel supply pumps that have redundancies and can automatically restart. That pump’s failure has been blamed for the second of two power outages in the moments leading up to the collision.

“If the Dali had been using the proper fuel supply pumps, then the vessel would have regained power in time to safely navigate under the Key Bridge,” said Kelly Hayes, the U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland.

Last month, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore assured that the Key Bridge reconstruction will be completed safely, on time and on budget.

The governor toured the Key Bridge construction zone with members of Congress, encouraged by the progress.

The cost of the rebuild project remains between $4.3 billion and $5.2 billion. The bridge is expected to be finished in 2030, which is two years later than initially anticipated.

The state cut ties with its previous contractor, Kiewit Corporation after it projected a nearly $9 billion price tag.

“It is going to have additional safety precautions and mechanisms that were not there when the original bridge was built. It will have to be larger because it has to accommodate larger ships,” Moore said. “I know when people say, well, that’s ambitious to say you’re going to build a bridge that’s safer and bigger and build it faster than what was done before, the answer is it is ambitious.”

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

Trump will need China for his new economic war against Iran. Good luck getting Xi on side

By CNN
Beijing (CNN) — When US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unveiled “Operation Economic Outcast,” threatening damaging new sanctions on countries that refuse to stop doing business with Iran, he didn’t name the one country that could decide its success or failure: China.The world’s second largest economy has long been a critical economic lifeline for Tehran, buying up the vast majority of its oil exports – worth an estimated tens of billions in US dollars last year – in addition to other trade.Bringing it on board with the White House’s latest effort to subdue an Iranian leadership stubbornly defiant after almost six months of war, however, is an extremely tall order.Beijing flatly rejects what it calls “unilateral” US sanctions and has long defended its right to regular trade with partners like Iran and Russia. It also surmises that Washington would be wary of triggering a broader economic confrontation that would hurt both countries, right ahead of the US midterms.On Tuesday, following Bessent’s presser, China’s Foreign Ministry vowed to “take all necessary measures” to safeguard its “own legitimate rights and interests” in the face of US sanctions threats.“Economic warfare and maximum pressure will not help resolve the issue; they will only further intensify tensions and conflicts, create spillover risks, disrupt the global economic and financial order,” ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said.Bessent’s threat also comes ahead of a highly anticipated visit by Chinese leader Xi Jinping to the US next month, where the two sides could make progress on extending a critical trade truce set to expire later this fall.Trump earlier said that he did not ask Xi “for any favors” on Iran during a May meeting between the two – a statement, which, if correct, will likely smell to Beijing of American desperation to end the conflict.What’s left now is a careful calculus for both countries in how they navigate what Bessent has said will be a period of “quiet diplomacy” – or privately issuing ultimatums to Iran’s economic partners, which the Treasury chief did not specifically name during his press conference.Chinese analysts suggest limited space for Washington’s demands: “China is unlikely to accept a situation in which Washington determines what Chinese companies can legally trade with third countries,” said Zhao Long, director of the Institute for International Strategic and Security Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.“That would establish a precedent that US secondary sanctions can effectively determine China’s commercial relations with third countries,” he said.What Washington could doChina imports Iranian oil using a shadowy system that’s by design insulated from the US dollar system – and sanctions.Private, so-called teapot refineries, purchase and process US-sanctioned Iranian crude, relying on a network of ports, financial institutions and tankers that are often similarly firewalled from international exposure. China hasn’t recorded these purchases officially in years, since after the US re-imposed sanctions on Iran when the first Trump administration backed out of the Obama-era Iranian nuclear deal.But pressure points do exist, analysts say.“When you look at the upstream ownership of these entities, you’ll find many are directly or indirectly held by major Chinese state-owned entities that are heavily integrated into the US dollar system,” said Max Meizlish, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank in Washington.“By sanctioning their subsidiaries, the US can apply pressure on the parents to divest at risk of being deemed as providing direct or indirect support to sanctioned entities,” he said.Bessent earlier this year said Washington has sent warnings to two unnamed Chinese banks about their role in Iran-linked transactions. When asked on Monday during his press conference what measures the US would take against non-compliant Chinese banks and shipping firms, he said “no one is above” facing US sanctions.Despite the tough talk, Beijing has seen the US threaten – and then back off – sweeping sanctions before. And it also knows Washington is acutely aware of China’s significant economic leverage over the US, especially in the form of its grip on the global supply of strategically critical rare earths.“If Washington crossed that threshold (of sanctioning major Chinese banks), Beijing would almost certainly respond, and the political atmosphere for a summit (between Trump and Xi) would deteriorate sharply,” said Sun Chenghao, a senior fellow at Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy in Beijing.Such a move might not automatically cancel their meeting, but it would “shift the summit from stabilization toward damage control,” he said.Summit considerationsBoth sides will be weighing up the impact of escalation to that summit, expected to be the first state visit by Xi to the US in 11 years.While Beijing will not want to be seen to be cooperating with a sanctions regime it opposes, there are careful maneuvers it could take – such as quietly reducing oil purchases or elevating its political messaging to Tehran and efforts to encourage restraint.Chinese purchases of Iranian oil have already declined sharply compared to last year as the US blockade has constrained Iranian crude exports.Chinese analysts have also in recent weeks suggested there are overlaps between the interests of Washington and Beijing, especially in terms of seeing trade flows restored in the Strait of Hormuz, which has been choked by the conflict, and restoring broader regional stability, also conductive to trade.And Beijing has in recent days re-upped its messaging urging restraint and normal operations around the Strait.In a joint statement following a meeting with Jordanian King Abdullah II in Beijing on Monday, Xi called for the restoration of “normal passage” through the Strait and a “comprehensive solution” to the conflict.Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Miao Deyu said last week while hosting Iranian officials in Beijing that China was “actively committed to promoting peace talks.”Even still, Beijing has shown itself wary of playing a direct mediator role in the conflict, preferring a position where it protects its own economic interests – and plays up its image as a stable power that supports regional peace, in contrast to Washington’s vacillations.Any cooperation with the US in restoring regional peace “should not be reduced to ‘doing Trump a favor,’” said Zhao in Shanghai.“Beijing is willing to contribute to ending the crisis, but it is not willing to become an instrument of Washington’s maximum-pressure strategy.”The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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