Ousted Ben & Jerry's Board Chair Sues Unilever, Alleging Defamation Over Palestinian Rights Stance

Anuradha Mittal, ousted in December as chair of Ben & Jerry's independent board, filed a federal defamation lawsuit against Unilever and its recently spun-off Magnum ice cream unit, alleging the companies deliberately destroyed her reputation because she championed Palestinian rights.

In a complaint filed in Oakland, California federal court, Mittal said her support for Palestinian rights and a ceasefire in Gaza "rankled" Unilever, with the acrimony escalating after Unilever announced the Magnum spinoff in March 2024. "Defendants achieved their goal of thoroughly humiliating and discrediting Ms. Mittal," harming her reputation and causing depression and chronic insomnia, the complaint said.

Mittal is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages and alleged that Unilever and Magnum acted with "actual malice," meaning they knew their statements were false or had reckless disregard for their truth.

The lawsuit lands amid a broader corporate power struggle over who controls the Ben & Jerry's brand and its decades-old activist identity. The suit escalates a years-long dispute over what Ben & Jerry's and its board say were Unilever's efforts to undermine their autonomy and the brand's social mission, including by removing former Ben & Jerry's Chief Executive Dave Stever.

Mittal joined the Ben & Jerry's independent board in 2007 and had served as chair since 2018. Raised in Kanpur, India, she is the founder and executive director of the Oakland Institute, a think tank focused on the rights of farmers, forest dwellers, indigenous communities and "pastoralists."

Before the lawsuit, Mittal had gone public about what she described as a pressure campaign preceding her ouster. "This October, Unilever-Magnum executives threatened me with defamatory statements in their forthcoming prospectus if I did not resign," she told the BBC. She said they simultaneously offered her "a prominent role in a multimillion dollar Unilever-funded non-profit if I gave in," an offer she turned down as "inappropriate."

Magnum said Mittal "no longer met the criteria to serve" on the board, following an investigation it had commissioned by external advisors. In response to the defamation filing, Magnum said in a statement: "The claims are unfounded and we are confident the court process will show this." Unilever did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Magnum had announced that directors who served more than nine years would no longer be eligible for re-election from 2026 onward. Beyond Mittal, long-standing directors Daryn Dodson and Jennifer Henderson were also removed or had their terms set to expire. If all three additional directors were 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 Unilever.

The dispute traces its roots to 2021, when Ben & Jerry's said it would stop selling ice cream in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a decision that began unraveling the relationship with Unilever. Unilever subsequently sold Israeli distribution rights to a local licensee to bypass the boycott, prompting the independent board to take the unprecedented step of suing its own parent company in federal court.

Unilever retained a 19.9% stake in Magnum following the December spinoff, maintaining a financial foothold even as Magnum now functions as Ben & Jerry's direct corporate parent. The defamation suit, filed as a separate action from the Ben & Jerry's independent board's existing litigation in the Southern District of New York, represents Mittal's personal legal counteroffensive in a corporate conflict that has widened well beyond a dispute over ice cream sales.