Mark Cuban Faces Insider Trading Trial

In connection with sale of stake in Internet search company

Mark Cuban, billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, goes to trial over regulators' claims he engaged in insider trading when he sold his stake in a Canadian Internet search company nine years ago.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2008 accused Cuban of acting on confidential information when he unloaded his 600,000 shares of Mamma.com four years earlier, just before it announced a private placement of shares.

The case was revived in 2010 after U.S. District Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater in Dallas dismissed it. Fitzwater came close to throwing it out again in March. Jury selection started today with a pool of 64 prospective jurors. The trial will probably last eight to 10 days, the parties have told the judge.