A Dallas federal jury found this afternoon that billionaire Mark Cuban did not commit insider trading.
After nearly four hours of deliberations, a jury of seven women and two men cleared Cuban on all counts, saying the government did not prove that the Dallas Mavericks owner had received confidential information from the CEO of mamma.com.
The Securities and Exchange Commission had accused Cuban of using confidential information to dump his shares of mamma.com and avoid losing $750,000.
The CEO, Guy Fauré, testified that he told Cuban about a planned special stock offering that would dilute Cuban’s existing shares and told Cuban that information was confidential. Prosecutors said that Cuban then sold his 600,000 shares to avoid a big loss.
But Cuban’s lawyers said there was no privileged information in the conversation.
The owner of the Dallas Mavericks testified in the government's insider-trading lawsuit. He said that he never agreed to keep information about the stock deal private and told the company that he would sell his shares.
Earlier this month, Cuban on the witness stand was a long way from the team owner yelling courtside at the referees. In court, Cuban answered "yes ma'am" and "no ma'am" and kept it low key and friendly when he disagreed with a prosecutor. But he couldn't resist a little showmanship -- at one point, he flashed his Mavericks' brand cufflinks at the court.
During a short break as prosecutors conferred, Cuban asked the judge if he could stand up and stretch.
“My back hurts a little bit, but you know it’s always painful when I can’t be at practice watching the Mavs,” Cuban said. “So that’s always a problem.”
Outside during a break, Cuban preferred to talk with reporters about the team, not the case.
"I think the Mavs are going to have a good season if we stay healthy," Cuban said. "It's a special time when the season starts, so I'm obviously very, very excited."
Read KERA's previous coverage of the Cuban trial:
