BioUrja files suit against Purell manufacturer, alleges breach of contract
An ethanol supplier with a plant in Peoria has filed suit in U.S. District Court against the manufacturers of Purell claiming that they failed to execute an agreement over a purchase of millions of gallons of the product.
BioUrja Renewables, a subsidiary of the Houston-based refined petroleum company BioUrja Group, filed the suit in July 2023, saying that GOJO Industries entered into an agreement in June 2020 with Vantage Corn Processors, a subsidiary of Archer Daniels Midland and the prior owners of the Peoria plant, for nearly 15 million gallons of 190 proof ethanol to be used for the hand sanitizer. BioUrja assumed the contract when they purchased the plant in October 2021.
The initial complaint says that GOJO only acquired around 1.5 million gallons of the product and never issued another order for purchase after December 2021. Over the course of the next two years, BioUrja made repeated demands for GOJO to continue to make payments under the agreement, but they never made another order after that date, according to the suit.
The complaint says this constituted a breach of contract, with the company claiming that they had lost millions of dollars in damages as a result. They asked that the court award them no less than the amount in damages plus interest, attorneys fees and anything else that was deemed necessary.
GOJO responded in October, saying that the agreement between the two was an option contract, which didn't force the company to pay for the full amount of ethanol that had been agreed upon. They also said that it wasn't a breach of the contract with BioUrja, as it wasn't an issue with the payment of the contract, only the purchase of the product.
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A Rule 16 scheduling conference had been set for this week to determine a plan for discovery, but the two sides reached an agreement on the schedule in February that pushed back the expected start date of the trial into 2025. If there are no further delays and if a settlement is not reached, the trial is slated to begin in June 2025, with Central District Senior Judge Joe Billy McDade presiding over the case.
BioUrja is represented by Mike Burnick of Jackson Walker LLP, a Houston-based firm specializing in business cases, along with Peoria-based attorneys Jeffrey Sorenson and Timothy Gronewold and Victoria Emery, also of Jackson Walker.
GOJO is represented by Chicago-based attorney Brett Geschke and Cleveland-based attorney Joshua Klarfeld, both of UB Greensfelder LLP.
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This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Peoria plant involved in federal lawsuit with Purell manufacturer
