Genoa bridge verdict closes first trial; 32 convicted of negligence in 2018 collapse

An Italian court on Thursday sentenced Giovanni Castellucci, the former CEO of Autostrade per l'Italia, to 12 years in prison for his role in the 2018 collapse of the Morandi bridge in Genoa. The Guardian reported that 32 defendants in total were convicted of negligence and vehicular homicide, while 25 others were acquitted or cleared of charges. The collapse, which sent vehicles plunging onto railway tracks below, killed 43 people and exposed what France 24 described as serious lapses in the maintenance of Italy's ageing infrastructure.

The verdict marks the conclusion of the first trial stemming from the disaster, which occurred on August 15, 2018, when a 260-metre section of the motorway bridge buckled beneath traffic. The BBC reported that families of the 43 victims attended the courtroom as judges delivered their rulings. For residents and port operators in Genoa, the collapse had immediate consequences: the bridge served as a critical artery for vehicles moving between the city's port and the motorway network, and its sudden loss disrupted shipping logistics and trade flows that depend on rapid ground access to the waterfront.

The trial has laid bare a pattern familiar to Italy's infrastructure management. According to Al Jazeera, the case highlighted how the disaster could have been prevented—maintenance records showed that structural problems were known but inadequately addressed. The conviction of senior executives signals that Italian courts are willing to impose accountability for infrastructure failures, a shift that carries weight for port cities like Genoa where ageing bridges, viaducts and access roads remain critical to commerce and safety.

The port of Genoa, Italy's largest, depends on a network of bridges, tunnels and access roads built decades ago. The Morandi collapse forced a reckoning with deferred maintenance across the region's transport infrastructure. In the years since, authorities have accelerated inspections and reinforcement work on similar structures, though international observers have questioned whether the pace of repairs matches the scale of the problem. Reuters and other outlets have noted that Italy's public debt constrains spending on infrastructure maintenance, a fiscal reality that weighs on port-dependent cities.

Castellucci's 12-year sentence is among the longest handed down in the trial. The Guardian reported that he was found guilty of failing to ensure adequate maintenance and inspection protocols. Other defendants included engineers, project managers and officials from Autostrade, the motorway operator that was responsible for the bridge's upkeep. The convictions are the first major accountability measures in a disaster that, according to France 24, exposed how private contractors managing public infrastructure can operate with insufficient oversight.

For Genoa's maritime economy, the verdict carries a secondary message: infrastructure reliability is now a matter of legal accountability, not merely technical or budgetary concern. The port authority and city planners have had to invest in alternative routes and redundancy to protect against future closures. The slow pace of reconstruction—a new bridge was completed in 2020 but took two years to build—has made clear that infrastructure resilience requires both capital and sustained political will. The court's decision to convict senior management may strengthen the case for accelerated maintenance spending across the region's critical transport links.