Ben & Jerry’s filed a complaint against its parent company in the federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday accusing Unilever of wrongly firing its chief executive because of his political outspokenness.
In the filing, the trendy ice cream brand alleged that Unilever fired David Stever from a job he had held since 2023 because of his commitment to the company’s social mission, BBC reported.
“Unilever has repeatedly threatened Ben & Jerry’s personnel, including C.E.O. David Stever, should they fail to comply with Unilever’s efforts to silence the social mission,” Ben & Jerry’s filing read.
On March 3, Unilever informed Ben & Jerry’s board that it planned to remove and replace Stever. However, the parent company proceeded to make good on its words with the approval of an advisory board, which violated the agreement the two companies made when they merged in 2000.
Ben & Jerry’s filing added that “under Mr. Stever’s tenure, Ben & Jerry’s outperformed Unilever’s ice cream portfolio.” Evidently, in 2024, the company’s sales outpaced Magnum’s, which is another Unilever-owned ice cream brand.
What’s more, under the acquisition deal, Unilever had agreed to allow Ben & Jerry’s to maintain its own board to oversee the brand, which, in theory, would allow the ice cream company to place “guardrails” around its social activism while ensuring its founders continued control.
However, the amended complaint that was part of a lawsuit the company filed in November purported that Unilever censored and threatened the ice cream maker’s efforts to support Palestinian refugees in the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
The lawsuit accused its parent company of attempting to pull apart Ben & Jerry’s independent board as well as keeping it from taking its own political stances—such as calling a ceasefire in Gaza, supporting U.S. college protesting civilian deaths, and urging the U.S. military to aid Israel.
Ben & Jerry’s founders, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield have remained staunchly outspoken about social issues for a long time. In 2021, the ice cream company ignited tensions when it declared it would stop selling its ice cream in Israeli-occupied territories.
On March 19, 2024, Unilever announced that it would cut 7,500 jobs and spin off its ice cream unit, including Ben & Jerry’s, to reduce costs. The move, which is expected to come to completion by the end of this year will effectively end the rocky 25-year relationship between the two companies.
