Updated: Late this afternoon, I spoke with Scott Friestad, deputy director for the SEC’s enforcement division. When I asked why it had taken four-plus years for this to get to court, Friestad said the agency “learned about the issues last year in 2007 and [had] been pursuing the investigation aggressively since then.” Why didn’t the allegations come out when the SEC was investigating Mamma.com over stock trading in 2004? Friestad: “To my knowledge, there was nobody investigating Mr. Cuban’s trading during any prior SEC investigations.”

During the investigation, Friestad said they learned about his public comments but he said Cuban’s comments make it look as though the sale occurred after the announcement that caused the shares to drop in price. Friestad: “Nowhere did he say that he sold his shares prior to the public announcement of the news issued by the company or that he had been given advanced information or that he had agreed to keep that information confidential.” Those contentions form the heart of the government’s case in the civil complaint. Friestad said there were no SEC investigations involving other Cuban transactions and that he wasn’t aware of any previous SEC investigations.