Holy fuck. In the reading of this complaint, this sale sounds like the most idiotic roid-rage irresponsible bullshit ever. Comedy gold in this chain of events.

14. The CEO prefaced the call by informing Cuban that he had confidential information to convey to him, and Cuban agreed that he would keep whatever information the CEO intended to share with him confidential. The CEO, in reliance on Cuban's agreement to keep the information confidential, proceeded to tell Cuban about the PIPE offering. Cuban became very upset and angry during the conversation, and said, among other things, that he did not like PIPES because they dilute the existing shareholders. At the end of the call, Cuban told the CEO "Well, now I'm screwed. I can't sell."

18.
One minute after hanging up with the Merriman sales representative, Cuban called his broker in Dallas and told the broker to sell his entire 600,000 share Mamma.com position. He told the broker "sell what you can tonight andjust get me out the next day."
19.
During after-hours trading on June 28,2004, Cuban sold 10,000 of his 600,000 Mamma.com shares at an average cost per share of $13.4990.
20.
The following morning, June 29,2004, Mamma.com's executive chairman sent another email to the board. He wrote that "we did speak to Mark Cuban ([the CEO] and, subsequently, our investment banker) to find out if he had any interest in participating to the extent of maintaining his interest. His answers were: he would not invest, he does not want the company to make acquisitions, he will sell his shares which he can not do until after we announce."

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You do not want people acting on material non-public information. That would destroy private confidence in public companies. You need to level the playing field so guys who know what's going on behind the scenes cannot take advantage of less-connected investors.

This is a bargain insiders struck with the general public to attract more investors to a free and fair marketplace. It's better for everyone this way.

/dick joke

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