Posted on 03/21/2025 3:51:22 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Ben & Jerry's accused its parent company, Unilever, of deciding to oust the ice cream maker's chief executive Dave Stever because he let it speak out on social policy issues, escalating a battle over the subsidiary's independence.
In a Tuesday night filing in Manhattan federal court, Ben & Jerry's said Unilever advised on March 3 it was "removing and replacing" Stever without the required approval from its board, after repeatedly threatening personnel if they did not comply with the parent's "efforts to silence the social mission."
It said this violated an agreement the companies signed in 2000 when London-based Unilever bought Ben & Jerry's.
Stever became chief executive in May 2023, and has been with the Vermont-based maker of Cherry Garcia since starting as a tour guide in 1988.Ben & Jerry's sued Unilever in November to stop alleged efforts to dismantle its board and end its progressive social activism, which has included protesting the war in Gaza, supporting a movement to defund police, and attempting to criticize U.S. President Donald Trump.
The latest accusations were made in a proposed amended complaint, which Ben & Jerry's needs court permission to file.Unilever fired back on Wednesday afternoon, seeking a dismissal of Ben & Jerry's earlier complaint.
It said it supports Ben & Jerry's and its social advocacy work, but the social mission has evolved into advocacy for "one-sided, highly controversial, and polarizing topics that put Unilever, B&J's, and their employees at risk."
According to Unilever, the change was driven by Ben & Jerry's Chair Anuradha Mittal and began in 2021, when the company decided to stop selling ice cream in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. That business was later sold.
Even Hippies like money!
The difference is, we as conservatives celebrate it, and they, as Leftists, condemn it.
But they still like having and using cash.
That is Ben & Jerry’s in a nutshell. Hippies in a nutshell. But most of all, Leftism in a nutshell.
Damn. It is like those nested Russian Matryoshka dolls.
You see Ben & Jerry’s, look inside, and they are Hippies.
Open the Hippies, and you see Leftists.
I think you are wrong, they like money much more. Most conservatives think there are ore important things than money.
Big time Vermont Socialist Fat Cats.
Ben & Jerry SHOULD be selling ice cubes in Hell.
I never buy their little pots of slop
Bernie Sanders dacha on the Black Sea socialists. Not peeling potatoes for the dinner at collective farm #376 socialists.
Perhaps if Ben and Jerry’s didn’t sell out to BIG FOOD, they’d still be allowed to support TERRORISTS.
They are like four decades too late.
Like no one ever knew that BJ was socialist or hippie activists.
I know they sold it, but the principles remain.
I won’t bother with them, now or back then.
Ads being run heavily for a long period of time by Ben & Jerry’s promoting / advertising far left causes including public nudity.
They just now noticed?
Selling ice cream out the front door and Bud Lite out the back door.
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