"Yup, and now its resulted in a securities and exchange SEC antitrust lawsuit. Hope he had fun"

***

Mr. Mackey's actions (posting on a message board) didn't result in any SEC antitrust lawsuit. The antitrust lawsuit is being brought by the FTC and is a result of their belief that the merger would be detrimental to consumers. Mr. Mackey's financial blogging came to light during the discovery process of that lawsuit.

"The company acknowledged that the postings by "rahodeb" were written by CEO John Mackey.

They were made public this week as part of a lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission to block Whole Foods from buying Wild Oats on antitrust grounds. Regulators say the sale would combine the two largest organic and natural foods retailers and raise prices for consumers by concentrating too much power in one company."

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070712/whole_foo...

While I could be wrong, I doubt that there is much that can be brought against Mr. Mackey legally; this attention is more of a "oops" moment. In fact, from what I've read ( http://legalpad.blogs.fortune.com/2007/0... ), it appears that Mr. Mackey didn't disclose any material, non-public information; rather, he stated what could already be verified by filed documents -- and his opinion on such matters -- opinions that could change somewhat over time. As the company (Whole Foods) stated, "[Mr. Mackey] now have far less relevance than when they were written. In addition, like most people, Mr. Mackey's opinion about some things has changed over time".

It is my suggestion that some of the comments currently seem inappropriate in light of recent developments regarding the merger -- a merger that Mr. Mackey opined would never happen, and at a price which is materially higher than what Mr. Mackey indicated as too high previously.