Ben & Jerry’s Board Sues New Owner Over Control of Activism

Ben & Jerry’s independent board has filed an emergency lawsuit accusing its new corporate parent, The Magnum Ice Cream Company, of trying to dismantle the brand’s activist independence.

The suit, filed December 18 in federal court in New York, seeks to block Magnum from removing three long-serving board members, including chair Anuradha Mittal. The board argues the move violates the unusual governance agreement negotiated when Unilever acquired Ben & Jerry’s in 2000, an agreement meant to preserve the company’s ability to take political positions even under corporate ownership.

Unilever spun off its ice cream division earlier this month, creating Magnum as a newly public company. Within days, Magnum imposed a nine-year term limit on Ben & Jerry’s independent directors, retroactively disqualifying three veterans and shrinking the eight-member board to roughly half its size.

The independent board says Magnum has no authority to do this and is using governance reforms as a pretext to neutralize a board that has repeatedly clashed with corporate leadership.

That clash has centered heavily on Israel. Over the past several years, Ben & Jerry’s leadership pushed the company into increasingly explicit anti-Israel activism, including its decision to halt sales beyond the Green Line and its public framing of Israel’s policies in Judea and Samaria as immoral or illegitimate. Corporate leadership resisted further escalation, citing legal, commercial, and diplomatic risks.

Those tensions intensified after October 7. Board members and company leadership reportedly sought to issue statements and campaigns condemning Israeli actions in Gaza and advocating Palestinian positions, moves Unilever and later Magnum blocked. The independent board previously sued Unilever in 2024, alleging it censored Ben & Jerry’s speech on Gaza, Palestinian refugees, and related issues.

Magnum says its actions are about governance, pointing to an audit of the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation that found deficiencies in oversight. The board rejects that explanation, arguing the audit is being weaponized to remove directors most closely identified with the brand’s political activism.

The case now puts a broader question before the court: whether Ben & Jerry’s activist governance model can survive a change in corporate ownership, or whether its outspoken positions on Israel, Judea and Samaria, and other flashpoint issues have finally pushed its parent company to draw a hard line.

A ruling on the board’s request for an emergency injunction is expected soon.