Unilever wins legal battle against Ben & Jerry’s owner

170
2
Unilever wins legal battle against Ben & Jerry’s owner

Unilever was forced to take legal action against American Quality Products AQP and its owner Avi Zinger, who were seeking damages from the UK-based consumer goods giant. Their contract was due to expire at the end of the year.

Since Unilever bought the ice cream company in 2000, an independent board has been retained with the right to make decisions about its social mission. The company is known for speaking out about issues that it believes are important.

After Ben Jerry's board decided to stop sales in the Occupied Palestinian Territory OPT, Unilever still had control of financial and operational decisions and said that was why it intervened. About 140 settlements have been built since Israel's occupation of West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. Israel disputes this, though most of the international community considers the settlements illegal under international law.

When the row started last July, Israel's Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said that a withdrawal would be bad business and morally wrong. Unilever owns several Israeli food brands, and in a phone call Mr Bennett warned its chief executive Alan Jope of the severe consequences Ben Jerry's is a popular ice cream choice among Israeli consumers, and the company even marks Jewish festivals with special flavours.

Palestinian activists behind the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions BDS movement praised Ben Jerry's at the time for what they said was a decisive step towards ending Israel's occupation and violations of Palestinian rights The movement tries to use economic pressure to force Israel to change its policies.

In a statement, Mr Lapid welcomed Unilever's efforts to resolve the dispute, saying that Anti-Semitism will not defeat us, not even when it comes to ice-cream. We will fight delegitimization and the BDS campaign in every arena, whether in the public square, in the economic sphere or in the moral realm.

The Ben Jerry factory in Israel is a microcosm of the diversity of Israeli society. Today's victory is a victory for all those who know that the struggle against BDS is first and foremost a struggle for partnership and dialogue, and against discrimination and hate. Professor Eugene Kontorovich, director of international law at the Jerusalem-based Kohelet Policy Forum, said Unilever's decision was a victory for the anti-boycott laws across America. He added that companies would understand that it was just malpractice to boycott Israel after the embarrassment and expense of this reversal.