Mark Cuban Shakes Up Investment Ethics With Sharesleuth

Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and seriate entrepreneur has funded a website called sharesleuth, which will focus on "corporate chicanery and securities fraud." The site will initially have a blog format, then, after it proves its worth, go subscription.

Cuban told BusinessWeek.com in an email that he'll buy and sell stocks based on scoops the site uncovers, even before they're published.

"There are a million ugly stories in the financial underground," he wrote. "We plan on finding and sharing and profiting from them." He declined to comment further.

Isn't that insider trading? Didn't Martha Stewart go to jail for that? Not necessarily.

Businessweek explained:

"Under the law, Cuban must disclose his interest in the securities Carey covers and Carey's stories must be true, according to Mike Missal, a partner at Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham specializing in securities regulatory matters. "Then they'll probably be OK," Missal says.

According to an interview by Chris Roush at Talking Biz blog investigative reporter Christopher Carey is leaving the St Louis Post-Dispatch to launch the new investigative journalism site at the end of June.

They’re going to take a multimedia approach, using the Web, Cuban’s television network and his movie-production capabilities. HDNet Films was one of two production companies behind the documentary, “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room,'’ which came out last year.

20-Jun-2006 By BL Ochman