Ben & Jerry’s is suing its parent company for censoring its support for Palestine

Ben & Jerry’s is suing its London-based parent company, Unilever, saying it silenced the brand’s attempts to express support for Palestinian refugees. The ice cream brand has attempted to speak out publicly on four separate occasions “in support of peace and human rights. Unilever silenced each of these efforts,” the lawsuit said.

In a statement, Unilever said it rejected the claims made by Ben & Jerry’s social mission board. “We will defend our case very strongly,” he reportedly said Associated Press.

It’s not the first time Ben & Jerry’s has clashed with Unilever over its political activism, which has been central to the brand’s DNA since its inception in 1978. Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield founded the international ice cream company in Burlington, Vermont, with a mission to “advance human rights and dignity”. From the jump, they committed to using local, hormone-free milk to make their ice cream and opened their first store in a renovated gas station. The brand has grown to nearly 600 locations worldwide.

Ben & Jerry’s has been a longtime supporter of progressive social causes and has garnered attention for being outspoken about the social and economic injustices that affect systematically marginalized communities. The brand’s website says “We love making ice cream, but using our business to make the world a better place gives our work meaning.”

In 2011, QSR reported on the brand’s support for Occupy Wall Street protests against corporate greed and the influence of money in politics. The company’s leaders, including former CEO Jostein Solheim and chairman Jeff Furman, called for an end to the corporate character. Specifically, the company supported the repeal of a decision from The Supreme Court in its 2010 case Citizens United which allowed companies to financially support political campaigns. In the decision, the Court ruled that the government cannot censor political broadcasts during elections that are funded by corporations. This has paved the way for super PACs or “dark money” groups that spend billions of dollars to influence politicians and consequently impact US elections. “We need to get money out of politics,” Furman said. “We choose democracy.”

Ben & Jerry’s went public in 1984, but reverted to a private company when Unilever—one of the world’s largest consumer goods companies with more than 400 brands and a net worth of more than $140 billion—acquired the business in 2000. The Greenfield co-founder was reportedly unhappy with the takeover from the global giant. However, the deal was for Ben & Jerry’s to be run autonomously by an independent board of directors, allowing it to continue to support social issues.

Dig into the Details

In the recent lawsuit, the ice cream brand claimed that Unilever exceeded and violated the terms of a 2022 agreement that required the parent company to “respect and acknowledge the primary responsibility of Ben & Jerry’s independent board to Ben & Jerry’s social mission and essential brand integrity’. and “collaborate in good faith with the Independent Board to ensure that both are protected and promoted.”

In July 2020, the brand’s Independent Board unanimously passed a resolution directing company management to create a plan to end all distribution of Ben & Jerry’s products in “Israeli-only settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” in the West Bank, as it was not consistent with its values. . The company publicly announced the decision a year later, and Unilever issued a concurrent press release stating that it “has always recognized the right of the brand and its independent board to make decisions about its social missions.”

However, in June 2022, Unilever has announced that it has sold the intellectual property of Ben & Jerry’s in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory to its Israeli licensee, which will market Ben & Jerry’s products under Hebrew and Arabic labels and allow sales to continue in the settlements. The Independent Board claimed it was not informed or consulted about the sale and responded by filing a lawsuit within days, claiming Unilever’s actions violated the terms of the previous merger agreement and undermined their responsibility to protect Ben’s values ​​and values & Jerry. mission. Ben and Jerry’s request the sale was blocked by a federal judge.

In the new lawsuit, Ben & Jerry’s said that just months after the settlement agreement was finalized in December 2022, “Unilever has already begun its efforts to undermine it. Specifically, during the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which has claimed the lives of more than 18,000 innocent Palestinian children, Ben & Jerry’s has attempted four times to publicly speak out in support of peace and human rights. Despite its contractual commitment to ‘respect and acknowledge’ the Independent Board’s primary responsibility for the social mission and essential integrity of the Ben & Jerry’s brand, Unilever has silenced each of these efforts.”

Here are the posts listed in the process:

December 2023: Call for peace and ceasefire

Ben & Jerry’s claims it told Unilever in December 2023 that the company planned to publicly call for a ceasefire in Gaza. “Ben & Jerry’s calls for peace and a permanent and immediate ceasefire,” the statement read.

In response, Ben & Jerry’s said Unilever threatened to dissolve the Independent Board and to sue the board members individually if they issued the above statement. “These threats were coupled with personal calls from Peter ter Kulve and Jeff Eglash (Unilever’s president of ice cream and global head of litigation), who attempted to intimidate Ben & Jerry’s staff with professional retaliation if the company issued ceasefire declaration. the process.

May 2024: Safe passage for Palestinian refugees

In May, Ben & Jerry’s social activism managers in Europe attempted to issue the following statement in support of the safe passage of Palestinians fleeing Gaza:

“People fleeing war need routes to safety, but at the moment there are no safe ways for war-affected Palestinians to seek shelter in the UK. So, just as the UK did for the Ukrainians, we are calling on the government to urgently create a visa scheme to allow Palestinians to be SAFELY reunited with their loved ones in the UK.”

The suit alleges that Unilever blocked social activism managers from publishing the statement without the knowledge or consent of the Independent Board. Ben & Jerry’s also detailed its long history of supporting the safe passage of refugees from several countries, including Rwanda, Afghanistan and Ukraine, among others.

June 2024: Supporting campus protests

As students on college campuses across the country protested the civilian deaths and humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Ben & Jerry’s management and the Independent Board agreed to issue a public statement upholding the protesters’ First Amendment rights. (The exact text of the statement was not included in the lawsuit.) When Ben & Jerry’s informed Unilever that it would release the statement supporting the protesters’ rights in June, Jeffery Eglash, Unilever’s global head of litigation, blocked its release, according to the lawsuit.

September 2024: Freeze arms sales to Israel

In September, Ben & Jerry’s tried to pass Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ resolution calling for legislation to block $20 billion in arms sales to Israel. “Sending more weapons to Netanyahu’s extremist government is immoral and illegal: American weapons are responsible for far too many civilian casualties in Gaza. We must end our complicity in this atrocity,” Sanders said in a social media post on September 25.

Ben & Jerry’s statement read: “We support the Sanders Resolution. As we approach the one-year anniversary of October 7, with tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians killed and scores of Israeli hostages still held, we believe in delivering critical humanitarian aid, not sending more weapons. We urge you to join us in asking the Senate to pass the Sanders Resolution and stop an additional $20 billion in military aid to Israel.”

The next day, Ben & Jerry’s was informed that Peter ter Kulve, Unilever’s president of ice cream, “unilaterally vetoed the statement in what was Unilever’s fourth act of censoring Ben & Jerry’s social mission in less than for six months”. according to the process.

Blocking donations to humanitarian organizations

Ben & Jerry’s also claimed that Unilever failed to meet a key condition of their 2022 settlement agreement, which required the parent company to provide $5 million to the Independent Board, in conjunction with Unilever, to distribute to organizations humanitarian and human rights of their choice.

Unilever blocked Ben & Jerry’s from donating to Jewish Voice for Peace, saying “the group was too critical of the Israeli government,” the suit says, and also blocked the brand’s donation to the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of Council for the Americas. Islamic relations. Ben & Jerry’s said Unilever’s objections were “riddled with inconsistencies” and “boiled down to the same issue: the organizations advocate for human rights, called Palestinian human rights… Unilever’s pretext for blocking the donations was that they allegedly try to remain “neutral”. about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict”.

“Unilever has repeatedly failed to recognize and respect the independent board’s primary responsibility for Ben & Jerry’s social mission and brand integrity, including threatening Ben & Jerry’s staff if the company speaks out about issues that Unilever prefers not to.” censor them,” said the ice cream maker. process. “The independent board is initiating this litigation to protect Ben & Jerry’s three-pronged mission from unilateral erosion by Unilever and to protect the company from Unilever’s repeated overreach.”

While some companies strive to remain neutral and harmless to all, Ben & Jerry’s is comfortable leaning into issues, even if it alienates some consumers. On the other hand, those brand values ​​resonate with other consumers, who are deeply loyal as a result, QSR he wrote in a 2019 article. Ben & Jerry’s was one of the first major companies to support marriage equality in 2009, and in 2015, it joined other businesses (including candy company Mars) in calling for a carbon tax at the UN Climate Change Conference.

Ben & Jerry’s filed the lawsuit Nov. 14 in the Southern District of New York.

In March, Unilever announced it was eliminating 7,500 jobs and exiting the ice cream business to reduce costs and increase profits.