Unilever wins Ben & Jerry’s Israel boycott lawsuit

Global giant Unilever won a lawsuit in Manhattan on Tuesday when the courts ruled in favor of the company, which claimed it did not mislead U.S. investors by not immediately disclosing the decision of its Ben & Jerry's unit to stop selling ice cream to Israelis living beyond the Green Line between the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

United States District Judge Lorna Schofield ruled that Unilever was not legally required to inform its investors about Ben & Jerry’s partial Israel boycott plan because the parent company had ultimate control over corporate decisions, thus dismissing the lawsuit filed by a Michigan pension fund in last year.

In June 2022, a Michigan police and firefighter pension fund sued Unilever, where the fund had its shares, arguing that the ice cream maker's parent company had inappropriately concealed the information from shareholders. The fund sought damages for the drop in Unilever shares after Ben & Jerry's first made the announcement the previous year that it would halt sales in Judea and Samaria, as well as parts of east Jerusalem.

Avi Zinger of American Quality Products (AQP), the licensee of Ben & Jerry’s in Israel, claims that Ben & Jerry’s products are universally loved in the Jewish state.

“Everyone loves Ben & Jerry’s in Israel. We are good and happy,” Zinger said. “As far as I am concerned, there is no news,” he added.

In July 2021, Ben & Jerry’s decided to stop selling its famous ice cream to Israeli residents in what it called the “occupied territories," defined as the West Bank and the eastern parts of Jerusalem.

While the decision was widely viewed as a victory for the global anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, then-Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid blasted Ben & Jerry’s decision as anti-Israel and even antisemitic.

“Ben & Jerry’s decision is a disgraceful capitulation to anti-Semitism, to BDS, to all that is evil in the anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish discourse,” Lapid stated at the time.

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the Jewish founders of Ben & Jerry’s, decided to go public, describing themselves as “proud Jews” and supporters of Israel.

However, they stressed their opposition to Israeli policies in the West Bank.

“But it’s possible to support Israel and oppose some of its policies, just as we’ve opposed policies of the U.S. government,” stated the ice cream founders.