Legal battle over indefinite contract between Chippewa Valley Ethanol and corn supplier finally ending

In Minnesota, local press reports that after four years of litigation that went as high as the state supreme court, the legal tussle between Chippewa Valley Ethanol Company and Glacial Plains Cooperative has come to an end with a court order saying that “reasonable time” had elapsed for the ethanol plant to terminate its contract with its corn supplier. A 1994 contract was signed making GPC the ethanol plant’s exclusive corn supplier that was meant to continue indefinitely but the state supreme court ruled that “indefinitely” did not mean “in perpetuity” but that a “reasonable amount of time” must have passed. Following that ruling, a district court order has now determined that the ethanol plant could cancel its contract having complied with the “reasonable time” stipulation.