Monday Evening 12/29 Update is at the end of this post.

On Wednesday we heard from our attorneys that the Federal Trade Commission ruled that we have to turn our confidential internal financial, marketing and planning information over to Whole Foods Market. Here's a link to the ruling. We disagree with and are disappointed in this decision. We're huddling with the lawyers to figure out what our next step is going to be. It looks like we're going to appeal but I'll get back to you once we have a clear direction. This isn't over yet.

In the meantime, if you're wondering why one of our competitors is demanding access to our private information, you can read about the details on this link.

Also, the Oregonian has written about this once more. Here's a link to the story in Friday's paper. I have a few comments to make on some of the information in the story.

I'm glad that Laura Gunderson, the reporter, pointed out that only 50 of the 93 companies that Whole Foods issued the subpoenas to have responded, even though the deadline is long past. It's comforting to know that we're not the only company saying "no" to these unreasonable demands.

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Here's the latest on our ongoing legal issue with Whole Foods. Remember, the crazy thing about this is that it has nothing to do with New Seasons Market. It's about Whole Foods defending their takeover of Wild Oats. We're not in any way a party to the lawsuit and don't have an opinion one way or the other about how it should be resolved.

As you probably remember, we had filed a "motion to quash" with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). It asked that we not be required to turn over our private internal records to Whole Foods. (Here's the link to my original blog post that explains the situation in detail.) Whole Foods then filed a response to our motion, attempting to justify why we should let them have our files. Here's the link to the Whole Foods response.

Unfortunately, the tone in Whole Foods legal filing is quite different than the soothing words they've been posting on blogs and editorial pages around Portland and the rest of the country.

I'll give you a couple of examples.

On the blogs they compliment us saying stuff like, "We know that New Seasons and many other fine natural foods stores are serving their customers well . . ." But, in the court filing they say we are, "smearing Whole Foods".

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The Oregonian has published their third piece in the last five days about Whole Foods Market's demands for our internal emails, weekly sales data and marketing and growth plans. Here's the link to it and here's the link to the editorial that ran on Thursday and the story that ran on Wednesday.

We're very encouraged by the incredible amount of interest in this situation. We've heard from media outlets from all over the country and our blog continues to get lots of comments (although to be honest, in the last couple of days, it kind of looks like the same person is posting there over and over again).

Just to review the situation?Whole Foods Market is in a dispute with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) about their takeover of Wild Oats. As it turns out, because of this dispute, Whole Foods has an opportunity to try and force us to give them copies of some of our most confidential financial records and strategic plans. We think there are lots of other ways they can make their case with the FTC without putting us at such a big risk. Want more information? ...

The Oregonian has weighed in with their perspective about Whole Foods Market subpoenaing copies of some of our most confidential financial records, including our strategic plans, our marketing plans and our studies about where we are considering opening new stores. Here's the Oregonian story from this morning's paper, New Seasons fights chain's subpoena and here's the editorial board's take on the situation, Special on chutzpah, Aisle Three.

Looks like there's a problem with the link to the Oregonian editorial right now. Here's a copied and pasted version:

Special on chutzpah, Aisle Three

by The Oregonian Editorial Board
Wednesday December 03, 2008, 4:11 PM

Whole Foods, already under fire for its anticompetitive conduct, pushes its luck
There's silly and there's federal government silly, as New Seasons Market is finding out.

The privately owned, Portland-based chain of natural and healthy grocery food stores has been asked, and may be ordered, to provide a raft of confidential information to a much larger competitor, Whole Foods Inc....

By Brian Rohter

You may have heard that New Seasons Market has found ourselves caught in the crossfire of an ongoing legal dispute between the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Whole Foods Market. The disagreement has to do with whether or not the Whole Foods merger with Wild Oats should be "allowed to proceed". Yes, we know that seems like a crazy thing to be fighting about since all the Wild Oats stores that were around here have already been closed or turned into Whole Foods stores, but neither the federal government or Whole Foods asked us for our opinion about that.

You also are probably trying to figure out what this could possibly have to do with us. That's a great question. Since we've been minding our own (local) business and have never expressed an opinion one way or the other about this merger, we were wondering the same thing.

As it turns out, because of their legal dispute with the FTC, Whole Foods has an opportunity to try and force us to give them copies of some of our most confidential financial records ? for instance what our sales are, week by week, at each of our stores. They've also demanded all of our files that detail our strategic plans, all of our marketing plans and all of our studies about where we are considering opening new stores. You can see the entire subpoena here, and below is a partial list of what they're trying to get (quoted directly from the subpoena):

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