Ben & Jerry's Foundation joins lawsuit challenging The Magnum Ice Cream Company

The Ben & Jerry’s Foundation, a non-profit funded by the ice cream brand, said on Monday it had won a court ​ruling to join a lawsuit challenging its ultimate parent company, ‌The Magnum Ice Cream Company, over contractual obligations and independence.

Unilever retains a 19.9% stake in Magnum, which formed when the consumer goods conglomerate spun off its ice cream unit ​in December.

Directors from the independent board of Ben & Jerry’s, now owned ​by Magnum, have challenged the company’s plans to appoint new ⁠directors and accused it of corporate overreach.

Since 2024, Vermont-based Ben & Jerry’s ​and its independent board have fought Unilever, and now Magnum, in a U.S. ​District Court in New York over what they say are efforts to undermine the brand’s social mission and the board’s autonomy.

• The foundation said it decided to join the lawsuit ​after Magnum stopped providing it with funding and described the court’s ​ruling as an important step in ensuring the foundation can defend its independence.
• “This is about ‌more ⁠than a contract, it’s about whether a corporation can weaponise a governance structure and withhold funding when prior commitments and values become inconvenient,” President of the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation Board of Trustees Liz Bankowski said in a ​statement.
• Magnum said it ​was fully committed ⁠to Ben & Jerry’s, including continuing to fund the foundation.
• “The recent steps to update Ben & Jerry’s corporate governance are ​wholly aligned with the merger agreement and standard corporate governance ​across ⁠the organisation; nothing more than that,” Magnum said in a statement. “Suggesting our actions are anything more is just not true; they are not and never have ⁠been.”
• The ​Ben & Jerry’s Foundation, set up in 1985, uses ​contributions from Ben & Jerry’s to make donations to other non-profit organisations focused on issues ranging ​from racial equity to environmental protection.