Mark Cuban, billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, is going to trial over regulators’ claims he engaged in insider trading when he sold his stake in a Canadian Internet search company nine years ago.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2008 accused Cuban of acting on confidential information when he unloaded his 600,000 shares of Mamma.com four years earlier, just before it announced a private placement of shares.
The case was revived in 2010 after U.S. District Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater in Dallas dismissed it. Fitzwater came close to throwing it out again in March. Jury selection is to start today, and the trial will probably last eight to 10 days, the parties told the judge.
Cuban, 55, maintains he did nothing wrong.
“I am excited about this, to finally come to court,” Cuban said today before entering the courthouse. “I won’t be bullied. That’s the key element.”
Cuban’s lawyers said in court papers that the SEC accused him of misappropriating confidential company information for his personal use in selling Mamma.com securities.
“The record shows that nothing could be further from the truth,” the attorneys wrote.
Mavericks’ ‘Honcho’
Cuban, chairman of the high-definition television network HDNet, has owned the Mavericks since 2000. The National Basketball Association franchise, which identifies him as “head honcho” on its website, won the league championship in 2011, beating the Miami Heat four games to two.
He also owns the Landmark Theatre chain, has been a contestant on the television program “Dancing with the Stars” and appears regularly on the television show “Shark Tank.”