Mark Cuban on witness stand for second day

[TexasTowelie]

Mark Cuban said Monday that he never consents to oral confidential agreements and that he bluntly told Mamma.com officials and their financial advisors that he would sell his stock in the company if Mamma.com conducted a private equity offering in 2004.

On the witness stand for the second day, Cuban restated his testimony from last week that he made no agreement to keep information provided to him confidential and that he never agreed to not sell his stock based on the information, which are key elements the government must prove to win its insider trading case against the Dallas Mavericks owner.

Cuban told jurors Monday that he had growing concerns about Mamma.com after he was contacted by an FBI agent in April 2004 informing him that the federal government was investigating the relationship between the Canadian Internet company and one of its board members and Iving Kott, a stock broker who later pleaded guilty to fraud charges.

The Dallas billionaire says he immediately confronted Mamma.com executives about the connection.

More at http://bizbeatblog.dallasnews.com/2013/10/mark-cuban-on-witness-stand-for-second-day.html/ .

[Gothmog]

1. Cuban is doing a good job

To win the insider trading case, the SEC has to prove that Cuban had agreed not to trade on the information that he learned or that the broker who told him the information had misappropriated the information. So far Cuban is doing a good job and I do not think that the SEC is winning this case based on these reports

[Gothmog]

2. Jury believed Cuban

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/verdict-due-mark-cuban-insider-trading-case-8C11403084

A Texas jury found Mark Cuban, the billionaire owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, not guilty on Wednesday of insider trading for the sale of his stock in an Internet company in 2004.

Cuban, 55, estimated by Forbes magazine to have a net worth of $2.5 billion, was accused by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of trading on non-public information when he sold his 600,000 shares in Internet search company Mamma.com - worth $7.9 million - and avoided a $750,000 loss.

To win, the SEC had to prove that Cuban had agreed to hold the information confidential or that Cuban knew that the information had been stolen. It sounds like the SEC did not meet its burden