The charges capped a yearlong effort to investigate the workings of so-called secondary markets, where firms trade privately owned pre-IPO shares and options of companies like Facebook that have not yet completed initial public offerings.

In the SharesPost matter, the SEC brought an administrative proceeding against the firm and its CEO Greg Brogger of Park City, Utah. “SharesPost engaged in a series of activities that constituted the business of effecting securities transactions and thus were required to register as a broker-dealer,” the commission said in a statement announcing the action. SharesPost and Brogger agreed to pay fines of $80,000 and $20,000 respectively. SharesPost has since acquired the proper broker-dealer licenses. See the consent decree here.

In another case, the SEC brought an administrative proceeding against EB Financial Group and its founder Laurence Albukerk of San Francisco. The commission says that Albukerk and his firm failed to disclose compensation earned from two funds consisting of Facebook shares. Having told investors he charged only 5 percent beyond an initial investment and 5 percent upon distribution, he charged a fee when buying shares in an entity controlled by his wife that had bought some Facebook shares and then charged his own investors a mark-up that wasn’t disclosed. “As a result of the fee and mark-up, investors in Albukerk’s two Facebook funds ultimately paid significantly more than the fees disclosed in the offering materials,” the commission said.

Albukerk and EB Financial agreed to pay disgorgement fees of of $210,499 and a penalty of $100,000. Albukerk was not required to admit wrongdoing. See the consent order here.

The lawsuit, (complaint embedded below) is against Frank Mazzola of New Jersey, and seeks a court order prohibiting him and his firms from engaging in fraudulent activity and the disgorgement of any funds. Through his firms Felix Investments and Facie Libre Management Associations, the SEC says, he engaged in what it calls “improper self-dealing,” including earning commissions on the sale of Facebook shares that were above the 5 percent disclosed in marketing materials. The hidden charges effectively meant that investors paid more for their shares.

The complaint also says that Mazzola’s firms misled investors, telling them in one case that it had acquired shares of social gaming concern Zynga when it had not, and in another instance, misstating the number of investors participating in its Twitter fund.

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Looks like Sue was right, and the road to which he referred was a short one. The struggling telecom company has hired counsel to explore a bankruptcy filing, The Wall Street Journal reports. Nortel, well aware what such reports can do to investor confidence, insists that no such filing is imminent. The company does, however, acknowledge that it has engaged advisers to help it weather the current economic storm. Just who has Nortel hired? Word on the street says Lazard Ltd. and law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton.

Grim news for Nortel, which has spent the past several years trying to recover from the general downturn in the telecom industry and a nasty accounting scandal. With apparently very little success.

In a statement Wednesday, the company said, “Nortel is hard at work reshaping the business to even better serve our customers. There are those who fuel negative speculation, but there are many more who believe that Nortel has put in place the necessary plans to strengthen our financial footing and reset our cost base.”

“Considering the worsening macro environment, Nortel’s challenged industry position, and concerns related to liquidity while the capital markets are basically closed, we think bankruptcy is a distinct possibility down the road,” Sue wrote in a note to investors. “The world moved on while Nortel was stuck in restructuring mode, and the lack of financial flexibility means Nortel has to rely on asset sales to fund future operations.”

More ugly news for Nortel (NT), which just announced layoffs and seems to be slipping closer and closer to the abyss each day.

Apparently, everything but Nextel is on the table.

Or, rather, Nextel is still on the table, but no one’s interested in buying it at the $5 billion+ price Sprint’s asking. Said Chris King, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus, “I’m not sure they were going to see that kind of valuation, especially in this type of capital markets environment.”