Many unresolved claims remain over the bridge collapse, which killed six people and snarled local shipping for months.

The owner and operator of a cargo ship that plowed into a bridge in the US East Coast port of Baltimore earlier this year, collapsing it and killing six people, will pay a $102 million settlement for cleanup costs.

The settlement, approved on Friday by a US district judge, settles the US government’s claims against Singapore-based companies Grace Ocean Private Limited and Synergy Marine Private Limited.

It covers money the US government spent responding to the disaster, including clearing the wreckage of the Dali ship and bridge debris from the port of Baltimore, so the waterway could reopen in June.

“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 by the American taxpayer,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Benjamin Mizer said in a statement.

Shipping companies deny responsibility

A spokesman for the Singaporean companies that own and manage Dali, Darrell Wilson, said they had agreed to the payment despite denying responsibility. The spokesman also noted that the companies are fully insured for the settlement costs and that no punitive damages have been awarded.

However, the shipping companies face a host of other unresolved claims over the bridge disaster, including from the state of Maryland, Baltimore city and county, the families of those killed, workers affected by the port shutdown and insurance companies.

The state of Maryland estimates that rebuilding the bridge will cost between $1.7 billion and $1.9 billion with completion scheduled for fall 2028.

Wilson said the companies “are prepared to vigorously defend themselves … to establish that they were not responsible for the incident.”

The Dali cargo ship lost power and veered off course on March 26 before hitting a support pillar on the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

Six men on a bridge road crew filling potholes fell to their deaths when the structure collapsed, in what Baltimore Mayor Brandon M Scott called an “unimaginable tragedy”.

The disaster snarled commercial shipping traffic through the Port of Baltimore and put many local mariners out of work before the canal was fully reopened in June.

The US Department of Justice claimed that the ship’s electrical and mechanical systems were improperly maintained, which led to the accident. Specifically, the department pointed to excessive “vibrations” on the ship that lawyers called a “well-known cause of transformer and electrical failures.”

Instead of addressing the source of the vibrations, the crew members “jury rigged” the vessel, the department alleged in its filing.

The ship’s electrical equipment was in such poor condition that an independent agency halted further electrical testing due to safety concerns, according to the lawsuit.

In April, the FBI opened a criminal investigation into the disaster.