Survivors injured in the Berkeley balcony collapse, and the families of those killed, have settled with seven companies who were involved in the design and construction of the building.
The seven companies include Segue Construction Ltd which was the general contractor on the building and recently lost its contractors license and is forbidden for reapplying for another one for five years.
The other six companies are Northstate Plastering, R Brother Waterproofing, Abacus Project Management, IRC Technologies, TCA Architects and LS Mason and Associates.
In settling the case there was no formal admission of liability from any of the companies involved.
The sums paid will remain confidential.
Irish students Eoghan Culligan, Niccolai Schuster, Lorcán Miller, Eimear Walsh, and Olivia Burke and Olivia's Irish-American cousin Ashley Donohoe were all killed in the collapse.
Seven other Irish young people in California for the summer were seriously injured in the collapse on 16 June 2015.
The bereaved families and survivors are continuing their legal actions against the Blackrock and Greystar companies who own and manage the Library Gardens complex, in addition to the Insul-flow company which it is alleged poured the concrete on the balcony deck, although Insul-flow reject that claim.
Proceedings are also continuing against WR Grace, the company which is alleged to have supplied the waterproof membrane used on the balcony deck.
Those law suits are continuing and a trial date has already been set for February 2018, although that may be pushed back.
In a statement released through their lawyer the Donohoe family, who lost their daughter Ashley in the tragedy, said they would continue to push for legislative changes to ensure nothing like this could ever happen again.
Their lawyer, Eustace de St Phalle, said that the "amounts paid will never restore health or lives of the students but the payments reflect an effort to maximally compensate the victims within the means of the wrongdoers".
Segue Construction entered into a contract to build the Library Gardens complex in January 2005, and had completed the work and handed it over to the owner in April 2007.
The balcony in question was built at various stages between September 2005 and October 2005.
According to the legal documents filed with the California Contractors State Licence Board when Segue Construction lost its licence, the specifications for the balcony construction called for "pressure treated joists" to attach the balcony deck to the building.
However, the California Contractors State Licence Board says that these floor joists were not pressure-treated.
In addition the specifications called for three-quarter inch plywood to be used as the balcony flooring, and expressly stated that "Oriented Strand Board (OSB) is not an acceptable substrate".
But the balcony in question had been constructed using three layers of this OSB material.
In addition the building specifications called for a special "sacrificial membrane" to be applied to the balcony deck prior to final waterproofing to protect the surface from moisture during construction.
This coating was not applied, and furthermore during the construction phase - lasting around 11 months - over 38 inches of rain fell in the area.
The settlement papers detail that testing shows that if the balcony had been constructed as designed, it would have been well capable of holding the weight of the 13 students who were on it at the time of the collapse.
Forensic examination of the balcony after the tragedy showed "extensive dry rot" of the wooden joists holding the deck to the building, and of the surface of the balcony.
