Mark Cuban

Even So, Mark Cuban Is Probably Glad He Got Rid Of His Mamma.com Stock

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To get a sense of how old and long-drawn-out the SEC’s insider trading lawsuit against Mark Cuban is, consider this: the company in which he allegedly insider traded was Mamma.com. The .com was right there in the name. Future generations — hell, present generations — will indiscriminately add “.com” to the end of words to create an old-timey feel, the way we doeth with “-eth.”1

Actually it happened in 2004, and I don’t even need the “allegedly”: there’s no dispute that Cuban insider traded. Everyone agrees that:

  • Mamma.com was planning to sell some stock in a PIPE offering which would, inevitably, drive down its stock price;
  • Mamma.com’s CEO called Cuban and told him about the planned PIPE offering in advance, hoping to get Cuban to buy more stock;
  • Cuban instead sold the stock he already had, prior to the public announcement of the PIPE deal; and
  • Then the PIPE was announced and the stock dropped.

So he had material nonpublic information, and he traded on it, and he avoided losses by doing so. INSIDER TRADING. The only debate is whether he insider traded illegally, which, as I often find myself reminding people, is a separate question. The SEC’s lawsuit2 turns not on the facts above, but on whether Cuban agreed not to trade before learning the inside information. Here the evidence is less clear, but there’s enough evidence that he did for the SEC to survive summary judgment yesterday and take the case to trial. Here is that evidence:3

Continue reading at Dealbreaker….

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Morning Docket: 03.06.13

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* Dewey was quick about getting its Chapter 11 plan confirmed, but all of these unfinished business claims are taking a little longer to resolve than previously hoped. But hey, at least Paul Hastings settled. [Am Law Daily]

* Because sometimes profit sharing isn’t enough: Theodore Freedman, a former Kirkland & Ellis partner, pleaded guilty to tax fraud after underreporting his partnership income by more than $2M. [New York Law Journal]

* Here are some tips if you’re trying to get off a law school’s wait list. Apparently it’s wise to wait patiently instead of being a complete gunner from the get go. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News & World Report]

* Imagine a land filled with millions of little Honey Boo Boos. That’s what the great state of Arkansas is going to look like if the legislature passes the most restrictive abortion law in the country. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

* Not only do the Mavericks suck, but Mark Cuban’s luck in court does, too. His bid to toss an insider trading case was denied. He’d probably jump over the bench and have a fit if he could. [DealBook / New York Times]

* Dawn Clark Netsch, beloved Illinois pol and one of the nation’s first female law profs, RIP. [Chicago Tribune]

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Who Would Run A Law School If Law Schools Were Run More Successfully?

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What if your law dean didn’t look like everybody else?

Have you ever noticed how law school deans are all kind of all the same guy? They’re mostly white, mostly male, mostly smart, mostly charismatic, and mostly good at getting you to part with your money.

Law school deans are usually successful academics and respected faculty members. And when they’re not, we make fun of them. The virtue of having a dean who looks and thinks like everybody else is that you don’t risk getting a weirdo who will screw up your capital campaigns. There’s a reason why guys are generally happy when they show up to a party and they’re dressed like pretty much everybody else; it means that nobody screwed up.

Of course, the downside of picking 200 people with similar backgrounds is that it’s hard to get radical change in the way law schools are run. Instead of every law school being a “laboratory” of ideas, you get every law school just trying to follow the leader — and that leader is, of course, the hated U.S. News law school rankings.

A tipster who went to a school that is looking for a new dean asked Above the Law to suggest some “outside the box” candidates. We know that the school won’t seriously consider any of our suggestions, but it’s still a fun thought experiment. Who should be dean of your law school? We’ve got some thoughts…

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June Lawyer of the Month: Score One For The Practice Of Law

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So far, our Lawyers of the Month have been a motley crew. Dying helps. So does being incredibly stupid.

But this month we have a lawyer who won our Lawyer of the Month competition just for his old-fashioned practice of the law. Yep, in a month where we had naked people and dead people, an actual legal person won the competition….

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Lawyer of the Month: June Reader Poll

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Okay, we were really late with the May Lawyer of the Month reader poll. But that was in part because the May candidates were quite dull.

There is nothing dull about the June Lawyer of the Month candidates. I count two candidates who would be runaway winners if they didn’t have to face each other, and two other candidates that would be darkhorse choices to win in any other month.

The scandalous allegations about the June candidates put the sizzle in summer. And no, I don’t know why I wrote that sentence as if I were writing ad copy for Applebee’s…

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Non-Sequiturs: 06.22.11

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* You’d think the following would go without saying, but the kids these days need it spelled out, so here goes: If you are Facebook friends with a hostage taker, DO NOT send him status updates alerting him to SWAT team movements during a standoff. [Legal Blog Watch]

* Excellent interview with Mark Cuban’s lawyer, Thomas Melsheimer of Fish & Richardson. [Deadspin]

* Illegal immigrants are everywhere. And… and… it’s no BFD! It hasn’t ruined the country. In fact, Jose Antonio Vargas is a Pulitzer-winning journalist. [New York Times Magazine]

* How lawyers want you to handle it when they send you letters. [Popehat]

* My father used to say: If old white ladies are yelling at you, you must be doing something right. Or something like that. [Althouse]

* I only skimmed through Kash’s thoughts on Anthony Weiner, but I think she just said that if you are not tweeting your boner at people, you are leading a repressed and boring life. Unfortunately, Kash was never molested. [Room for Debate / New York Times]

* Maurizio Levi-Minzi, hiring partner at Debevoise & Plimpton, says that the firm is looking for people who are passionate about something, not necessarily the law. I can, like, vouch for that and stuff. [The Careerist]

* Unlike that Stanford guy, Walter Olson eschews sensational headlines, even though editors can sometimes overrule him. Oh, but as a blogger, I’m required to write this blurb this way: Walter Olson, establishment lapdog, defends the evil Wal-Mart and other enemies of galactic peace. [Overlawyered]

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Lawsuit of the Day: An ‘Eff You’ Motion to Dismiss

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Dear Mark Cuban: after you finish telling Fay Vincent where to stick his outdated and nonsensical opinions on what makes a good owner, please buy the New York Mets. We need you. Now that the Boss is dead, New York sports needs you. Lord knows, you wouldn’t have been stupid/unethical enough to be taken in by Bernie Madoff.

And we now know that if you did get in any sort of legal trouble, you are willing to hire the best lawyers around.

That’s right folks, today Mark Cuban’s lawyers showed themselves to have all of the chutzpah of the Mavericks’ owner himself. They filed a motion to dismiss a longstanding case against Cuban by Ross Perot Jr. Apparently, Junior owns a 5% stake in the Mavericks and has accused Cuban of being “reckless” in his leadership of the team.

Reckless in his leadership of the newly crowned NBA champions, that is.

In any event, Cuban’s lawyers decided to graphically dispute that point in a court document….

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Mark Cuban Wants to Pay Government Attorneys to Get Off Their Butts

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I’d love for Mark Cuban to own my basketball team. He’s a self-made billionaire who focuses on the fans and (for all the bluster) leaves the basketball decisions to basketball people. Compare that to current Knicks Owner James Dolan — a man living off of his daddy’s success, who thinks he’s smarter than he really is, who has run the once-proud Knicks franchise into the ground, and who may be in romantic love with Isiah Thomas. You’d take Cuban any day of the week over little Jimmy.

You’d probably take Cuban as a client as well. Stephen Best, the Dewey & LeBoeuf attorney currently representing Cuban in his SEC insider trading case, seems to be happy with his client. And we haven’t even seen his legal fees.

But if you are one of Cuban’s adversaries, it must be brutal. To paraphrase Rory Breaker, if the milk’s sour, Mark Cuban ain’t the kind of pussy to drink it. NBA referees know that. And SEC attorneys are about to learn the same lesson…

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