It’s a $4bn question — so don’t expect a quick answer.
A battle is likely to play out for years in a courtroom in Baltimore, Maryland, to decide if the owner and operator of a container ship that destroyed a city bridge are liable for $44m — or somewhere in the region of $4bn.
Legal experts say the dispute may have a greater significance than even the vast sums at stake in the case of the 9,962-teu Dali (built 2015), which brought down a bridge, left six construction workers dead and closed down one of the biggest US ports.
