Billionaire investment titan Mark Cuban believes that an insider trading investigation launched by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) doomed his efforts to own a Major League Baseball team.
Cuban, already the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, said that the SEC investigation “created an uphill battle for me.” The words came in five-year-old testimony obtained by the New York Post through a Freedom of Information Act inquiry.
In 2008, the investor, star of the TV reality show Shark Tank, had put in a $1.3 billion bid on the Chicago Cubs. Cuban’s bid, though, came at the same time that the SEC examined charges that he had engaged in the improper sale of Mamma.com, an Internet company he owned.
Cuban says that the Cubs disqualified his bid for the team because of the SEC investigation. He also claims that the SEC shadow that hung over him also cost him TV opportunities.
The investor later beat the government’s charges at trial.
After his court victory, Cuban criticized the government’s actions.
“Hopefully people will start paying attention to how the SEC does business,” Cuban said to the media outside the courthouse. “I’m the luckiest guy in the world. I’m glad this happened to me. I’m glad I’m able to be the person who can afford to stand up to them.”
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com
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