

Cuban responds to the SEC Insider Trading complaint - vaksel
http://blogmaverick.com/2008/11/17/the-sec/

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Alex3917
Cuban may well have been selectively targeted here. Let's not forget that the
SEC used its power to get back at Joe Nacchio for refusing to go along with
the warrantless wiretapping. Not to say that Nacchio (or Cuban) wasn't guilty,
but there could be more here than meets the eye.

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tptacek
Is there a "selective targeting" exemption from insider trading regulations?

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Alex3917
IIRC prosecutors are not allowed to selectively enforce a law. For example, if
Asians are forbidden from being within Boston city limits then the government
can't prosecute only Yao Ming to keep him from beating up on their basketball
team.

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tptacek
Wikipedia:

[According to SCOTUS] "A selective prosecution claim is not a defense on the
merits to the criminal charge itself, but an independent assertion that the
prosecutor has brought the charge for reasons forbidden by the
Constitution."[1] The defense is rarely successful; some authorities claim,
for example, that there are no reported cases in at least the past century in
which a court dismissed a criminal prosecution because the defendant had been
targeted based on race.

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Alex3917
Good find. The only time I've really ever heard this defense ever discussed in
the mainstream media is with regards to the Linda Tripp case.

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sofal
The sycophantic comments on his blog are nauseating.

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aston
A question for the more financially minded around here: How much of an impact
would Cuban's sale of the stock have made on the price? As in, had he waited
until their announcement, then sold all of his (largest minority) share, how
much of a price deflation could have been expected?

I imagine if that drop were large enough, he'd at least have an argument that
he shouldn't need to pay all of the $750k back.

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fallentimes
Cheers to Cuban for responding so quickly. I wish the media would stop hyping
this (front page news at CNN, ESPN, Yahoo, etc) until he's proven innocent or
guilty. Unfortunately they make their money on pageviews not in depth
reporting.

If he's guilty, I wonder if sharesleuth.com will cover it.

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jorgeortiz85
It's news.

Why would news organizations not report it?

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fallentimes
You shouldn't report just headlines. This morning CNN literally just had an
unclickable headline about Cuban. No article. No link. Nothing. Just more
"breaking news" linkbait/trafficbait bullshit.

Ironically, TC has had the best coverage so far.

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jorgeortiz85
Readers depend on news websites to report breaking news in a timely manner.
I'm sure CNN would love to have a full article about the charges as soon as
they are announced, but even they need some time to read, digest, and write up
their report.

~~~
fallentimes
Even a short paragraph (which ESPN/WSJ had before them) would be nice. It
demonstrates a level of due diligence.

The term "breaking news" doesn't mean anything any more because it's so
overused. It's like the word unique or the word special.

~~~
jorgeortiz85
I'm a bit puzzled. "Breaking" doesn't mean "important". In this context, "to
break" means:

    
    
      14. (v. tr.) To make known, as news: break a story.
      15. (v. intr.) To become known or noticed: The big story broke on Friday.
      (http://www.answers.com/topic/break)
    

So a "breaking news" story is one that is being made known or becoming known.
In the morning when the story was becoming known, I think the label was
perfectly appropriate.

~~~
fallentimes
Another definition (and the one I was thinking of):

 _Breaking news is a current event that broadcasters feel warrants the
interruption of scheduled programming in order to report its details_

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jorgeortiz85
Did cnn.com really "interrupt" any "scheduled" programming with the Cuban
story? They usually just have that red bar over the top with the "breaking"
headline.

~~~
fallentimes
Obviously the definition doesn't transfer perfectly to the internet.

Traditionally breaking news is reserved for news deemed important (see
previous definition). The problem is, everyone uses it too much, and if too
many things are deemed important, nothing is. And we're back to where we
started :).

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mattmaroon
I never knew there was a mamma.com

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sutro
Perhaps fellow insider trader Martha Stewart could send him some cookies if
they lock him up.

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soundsop
Martha stewart wasn't convicted of insider trading. She was found guilty of
obstruction of justice and lying to investigators:
[http://money.cnn.com/2004/03/05/news/companies/martha_verdic...](http://money.cnn.com/2004/03/05/news/companies/martha_verdict/).

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ryanwaggoner
Not much of a response...

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dgabriel
Anything more than that would be likely prohibited by his lawyer. It's very,
very easy to make the wrong public statement.

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bprater
Yep, I'm sure Cuban would love to talk about it, but he could get in legal
hot-water depending on what he says. (In fact, I'm surprised he said
anything.)

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vlad
It was a lawyer-vetted statement in response to media stories about him. Mark
had to post something on his blog so he did not look like he was avoiding the
issue, nor give the false impression that an elaborate explanation was coming.

There was a recent article that said the best way to stop a rumor was to
directly address the allegations, regardless of how trivial a rumor was. If
that is true, Cuban would have been more effectice if he simply stated that
the prosecution would have to prove in court that he did anything wrong, and
that he is glad to finally get the chance to settle the matter. Instead, he
attacked the prosecutor's motives several times, and denied it only as a last
remark. Therefore, it is not surprising that he is getting all this attention.

