Former Italian highway operator CEO sentenced to 12 years over 2018 Genoa bridge collapse that killed 43

Jul 16, 2026

An Italian court has convicted 32 people over the catastrophic 2018 collapse of Genoa's Morandi Bridge, which killed 43 people. Giovanni Castellucci, the former CEO of highway operator Autostrade per l’Italia, received the longest sentence of 12 years in prison for vehicular homicide and negligence. Prosecutors successfully argued that years of maintenance neglect and ignored warning signs on the bridge's pillars caused the disaster, while the defense unsuccessfully blamed an original design defect. The tragedy forced corporate settlements of up to 30 million euros and led the state to take over the operator from the Benetton family.

Genoa bridge collapse convictions

▪Mauro Coletta, the former top official in charge of the transport ministry's motorway directorate, was sentenced to five years in prison.
▪Giovanni Castellucci, the former chief executive of Autostrade per l’Italia, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for vehicular homicide, negligence, and complicity in multiple counts of manslaughter.
▪Paolo Berti, the former second-in-command at Autostrade per l’Italia, was sentenced to five years and six months in prison.
▪An Italian court in Genoa convicted 32 defendants, including former Autostrade per l’Italia chief executive Giovanni Castellucci, on July 16, 2026, over the 2018 Morandi Bridge collapse.
▪Antonino Galatà, the former chief executive of the engineering company Spea, was sentenced to five years and six months in prison.
▪Autostrade per l’Italia's former head of maintenance, Michele Donferri Mitelli, was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Infrastructure maintenance failures

▪Maintenance work had been performed on Morandi Bridge pillars 10 and 11 starting in 1993, but warning signs were ignored and similar work was never extended to pillar nine.
▪The defense argued that the Morandi Bridge collapse was caused by a hidden original construction defect involving cable corrosion rather than a lack of maintenance.
▪An investigation revealed that no maintenance work was carried out to reinforce the stays of pillar number nine of the Morandi Bridge between its 1967 inauguration and its 2018 collapse.

Bridge collapse casualties

▪The Morandi Bridge in Genoa, Italy, collapsed on August 14, 2018, during a torrential rainstorm, killing 43 people.
▪The collapse of the Morandi Bridge sent dozens of vehicles plunging approximately 50 meters onto warehouses and a riverbed below.

Autostrade corporate liability settlement

▪Autostrade per l’Italia and its engineering subsidiary Spea reached an out-of-court settlement with the public prosecutor's office, paying approximately 29 million to 30 million euros to the state.
▪Following public indignation over the disaster, the Benetton family's Atlantia group relinquished its controlling stake in Autostrade per l’Italia to the Italian state.

Morandi Bridge replacement

▪The new Genoa San Giorgio Bridge was designed by Genoa-born architect Renzo Piano and features sail-like pillars representing the city's maritime history.
▪The remains of the Morandi Bridge were demolished in 2019 and replaced by the Genoa San Giorgio Bridge, which opened in August 2020.