In a recent ruling by a Delaware bankruptcy court, Iowa Premium Pork has been instructed to pay an extra $188,000 to HyLife Foods, covering property taxes related to the sale of the Windom, Minnesota facility. This decision comes after HyLife, the previous owner of the closed facility, sold it to Iowa Premium Pork for $14 million back in June. HyLife claimed that the buyer was responsible for $215,000 in property taxes due to a bookkeeping error.
According to court documents, lawyers representing HyLife argued that both companies had mistakenly considered an amount owed for post-closing taxes as pre-closing taxes. As a result of this error, Judge Thomas M. Horan ruled this week that Iowa Premium Pork would need to pay $118,057.50 to resolve the tax claim.
While official plans for the future of the processing facility are still under review, Iowa Premium Pork has indicated that it intends to use the plant for the production of high-quality natural pork products, similar to its other three operations in the region.
The HyLife Windom facility ceased operations and filed for bankruptcy in June. Recently, Judge Horan approved the Chapter 11 plan proposed by HyLife Foods’ subsidiaries, which will now be presented to creditors for their vote.
