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Ben & Jerry’s independent board is pushing back against parent group The Magnum Ice Cream Company’s removal of several of its directors, including chair Anuradha Mittal, as part of a new term limit announced last week.

The Magnum Ice Cream Company, recently listed as its own entity through the separation of Unilever’s ice cream business in early December, said the governance changes aimed to ‘align principles and policies’ across the business.

As part of these measures, a nine-year term limit for board members was announced, making chair Mittal ineligible to serve on the board in addition to two other directors.

However, in a court filing reported on by Reuters, Ben & Jerry’s independent board is now asking a US judge to update its 2024 lawsuit against Unilever by adding Magnum as a defendant.

The ice cream brand’s founders and board have been involved in a lengthy dispute with Unilever, and now The Magnum Ice Cream Company, since 2021. They claim the parent company is silencing their stance on social issues, including the Israel-Gaza conflict.

The board is seeking to prevent the removal of the directors by asking the judge for an order to stop Magnum from doing so. According to Reuters’ reports, it is pursuing an expedited ruling within the next few weeks.

Since the filing of the lawsuit in 2024, the relationship between Ben & Jerry’s and its parent company has become increasingly strained.

One of the ice cream brand’s co-founders, Jerry Greenfield, announced his resignation from the brand in September, stating that the brand’s “independence is gone”.

Greenfield and co-founder Ben Cohen had publicly urged Magnum’s board to enable the brand to operate independently earlier that month, stating: “We no longer believe that Ben & Jerry’s can thrive as part of a conglomerate that fails to support its founding mission”.