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Ben Cohen, the outspoken co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s, has announced that the ice cream brand’s independent board is suing its new parent company, Magnum, accusing it of illegally interfering with the board that safeguards Ben & Jerry’s social mission — just one week after Magnum took charge.

“On Monday, just one week after taking charge of Ben & Jerry’s, Magnum tried to remove three key members from the Independent Board, which oversees Ben & Jerry’s social mission,” Cohen wrote in a post on X.

“The Independent Board is now suing Unilever/Magnum.”

Cohen made it clear that, in his view, the move crosses a legal and ethical line. “Magnum does not have the legal right to interfere with the Independent Board,” he added.

Reiterating the company’s founding ethos, Cohen stressed that Ben & Jerry’s was built to speak out — especially when it is uncomfortable. “If Magnum can’t live with that, they shouldn’t be in charge of it,” he wrote, adding the hashtag #FreeBenAndJerrys.

In 2000, Cohen and co-founder Jerry Greenfield sold the company to Unilever, negotiating a unique governance structure designed to protect its social mission.

However, the founders have repeatedly accused Unilever of trying to muzzle the brand’s activism, tensions that culminated in Greenfield’s resignation in September. Now, with Ben & Jerry’s placed under Unilever’s subsidiary — The Magnum Ice Cream Company (MICC) — those fears appear to have intensified.

What actually happened

According to Reuters, Ben & Jerry’s — now operating under Magnum — removed three long-serving members of its independent board as part of newly introduced governance rules, including a nine-year term limit for board members.

Among them was Anuradha Mittal, the board’s chair, who joined in 2007 and had served as chair since 2018. Mittal told Reuters earlier this month that she had no intention of stepping down under pressure from Unilever, describing attempts to remove her as an effort to “undermine the authority of the board itself”.

In a statement, Ben & Jerry’s said that directors who had served more than nine years would no longer be eligible for re-election from 2026 onward. While the company did not publicly name the affected members, sources confirmed to Reuters that Mittal was removed with immediate effect, while long-standing directors Daryn Dodson and Jennifer Henderson will see their terms expire on December 31.

If the three additional directors are removed, the board, which once had eight members, would be left with just two directors, Ben & Jerry’s CEO and one member previously appointed by the brand’s prior owner Unilever.

Cohen strongly pushed back against the move, praising the three directors for serving “with integrity and courage” and calling their removal “another step in Magnum’s systematic effort to dismantle Ben & Jerry’s from the inside and silence the very social mission that gives the brand its value.”

Competing narratives

Magnum, which now controls Ben & Jerry’s, has claimed that the brand’s foundation trustees have refused to address alleged deficiencies in financial controls and governance.

The trustees, however, flatly rejected those claims.

In a statement, they said the allegations were “misleading and unfounded,” arguing that what is unfolding is “a coordinated effort by Magnum to manufacture a narrative of dysfunction” in order to justify unprecedented control over an independent, mission-driven institution.

This latest clash is not happening in isolation. In 2021, Ben & Jerry’s announced it would stop selling ice cream in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, prompting a legal clash with Unilever. Last year, the company sued its parent over what it said were repeated attempts to silence its advocacy for a ceasefire and Palestinian rights.

Ben & Jerry’s was officially moved under The Magnum Ice Cream Company in September as part of Unilever’s planned corporate spin-off.