Magnum Ice Cream Names New Legal Team Amid Ben & Jerry’s Battle

Unilever PLC’s portfolio of ice cream brands, now known as The Magnum Ice Cream Co., has finalized its new in-house legal leadership as it prepares to become a standalone business later this year.

Natalia Cavaliere, most recently a New Jersey-based Americas regional general counsel for Unilever’s ice cream division, will now hold the same role at Magnum, she said Monday in a LinkedIn post. Cavaliere will work with Magnum’s chief legal officer Vanessa Vilar, who assumed that role this month after serving as Unilever’s group general counsel for ice cream. Vilar and Cavaliere have collectively spent almost three decades at Unilever.

Unilever has long sought to offload its global ice cream unit, which owns notable brands like Popsicle, Magnum, Klondike, Breyers, and Ben & Jerry’s. Magnum is the name of the new standalone company, which as of July 1 entered a transition phase ahead of a planned separation from the London-based consumer products giant in the fourth quarter.

Magnum also recently hired DLA Piper partner Palmina Fava as its chief integrity officer and head of litigation. Fava also now serves as general counsel for Ben & Jerry’s, she said in a recent statement posted to LinkedIn.

“It’s an exciting period for the company as it prepares for its separation from Unilever,” Fava said about her move to Magnum, which she called a “life-changing gift” as “life sure tastes better with ice cream!”

A Unilever spokesman confirmed that Fava has taken over as the top lawyer at Ben & Jerry’s from Jeffrey Eglash, who is also global head of litigation and business integrity at Unilever. Eglash, a former Big Law partner, was hired three years ago from Finnish technology company Nokia Oyj, where he once worked with Maria Varsellona, who is now Unilever’s legal chief and company secretary.

“Jeff will remain in his role with Unilever and is not moving to The Magnum Ice Cream Co. as part of the separation,” Unilever said. The company confirmed that Fava and Cavaliere will report to Vilar in their new roles at Magnum.

Food Fight

Ben & Jerry’s is now a subsidiary of Magnum but in court its independent board has been trying to extricate the company from Unilever’s corporate umbrella.

Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc. last year sued Conopco Inc., a US subsidiary of Unilever, over the latter’s alleged interference with its progressive social justice initiatives, such as advocating for the rights of Palestinians. Unilever bought Ben & Jerry’s in 2000. Under the deal, Unilever guaranteed that Ben & Jerry’s could retain control of its brand integrity and social mission. But that agreement has frayed in recent years. Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s reached a settlement in 2022 to resolve a prior dispute, which is being revisited in the current litigation.

A civil complaint filed in November accused Eglash of intimidating Ben & Jerry’s employees and barring the release of a company statement supporting the First Amendment rights of protesters on college campuses and elsewhere outraged by “civilian deaths and the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.”

Eglash, Fava, Cavaliere, and Varsellona didn’t respond to requests for comment.

David Lender, co-chair of the global litigation department at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, is representing Unilever in the case. Ben & Jerry’s is being advised by a team of lawyers from Ahmad, Zavitsanos & Mensing, which previously took the lead for the company in another lawsuit it filed three years ago this month against Unilever over its products being sold in Israeli-occupied territories like the West Bank. Cravath, Swaine & Moore advised Unilever in that matter, having also counseled Unilever on its initial purchase of Ben & Jerry’s.

Earlier this year Ben & Jerry’s founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield floated the idea of buying back their business, but Unilever subsequently said the company isn’t for sale. In March, Ben & Jerry’s asserted in court papers that its former CEO David Stever was ousted by Unilever over his political activism. A federal judge in New York has yet to rule on a motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed by Unilever that same month.

Unilever said Stever voluntarily resigned and it also accused Ben & Jerry’s of taking an “unnecessarily inflammatory and divisive approach” to a complex geopolitical issue that undermines its own products and an economic and social mission centered around “Peace, Love & Ice Cream.”

As both sides continue to face off in court, Unilever is preparing for Magnum to begin trading later this year in Amsterdam after exchanges in London and New York lost out on its listing. Linklaters has reportedly reprised its role as longtime outside counsel to the conglomerate on its proposed ice cream split.