Billionaire Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, was sued by U.S. regulators over claims he made illegal insider trades in shares of Internet search company Mamma.com Inc.
Cuban, 50, sold his stake less than four hours after Mamma.com told him it was planning to sell shares below its trading price in 2004, the Securities and Exchange Commission said in a civil suit today at federal court in Dallas. He had promised to keep the offering confidential and by acting on the tip, avoided more than $750,000 in losses, the SEC said.
``It is fundamentally unfair for someone to use access to nonpublic information to improperly gain an edge on the market,'' Scott Friestad, the SEC enforcement official overseeing the case, said in a statement.
The agency's suit seeks to impose unspecified fines and confiscate gains from the trades.
