43 people died when 200 metres of the Morandi Bridge suddenly collapsed during rush hour and dozens of vehicles fell 50 metres.
The court found the director guilty of negligence and causing deaths in traffic. Another former manager at Autostrade - which is responsible for a large part of Italy's motorways - was convicted and sentenced to eleven years in prison. The former manager of the engineering company Spea was sentenced to five and a half years.
A total of 57 people have been charged in connection with the bridge collapse. Most are managers and technicians at the companies involved, as well as officials at the Ministry of Infrastructure.
Some people were acquitted and, in some cases involving minor offences, the statute of limitations has expired.
In the investigation following the disaster, three people were suspected of falsifying reports on the safety of certain motorway viaducts and of providing incorrect information on bridge inspections.
The investigation has also shown that from the bridge's inauguration in 1967 until its collapse 51 years later, no maintenance was carried out on the support for bridge pier number nine, which was the one that gave way.
This collapse, as we and especially the prosecutor's office have always said, could have been avoided, says plaintiff's attorney Raffaele Caruso.
The former Autostrade director is already serving a prison sentence for his responsibility for a bus crash in 2013, in which 40 people died.
