The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is questioning Goldman Sachs about their private offering in Facebook. The inquiry is in preliminary stages. The SEC is interested in the structure of the deal. Goldman Sachs is in the process of creating a special $1.5 billion investments vehicle for their clients to invest in Facebook. [New York Times]

Yesterday I wrote about how Goldman Sachs and DST is investing in Facebook at a $50 billion valuation. The two companies are investing $500 million. It turns out that Goldman Sachs is setting up a “special purpose vehicle” to allow their wealthy clients to invest in Facebook, which is still a private company. However there is an SEC rule that may consider this move illegal.

Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU) is going to be making a payment of over $137 million to settle bribery cases brought forth by U.S. authorities. The case concerns Alcatel-Lucent and its subsidiaries between the 1990s through 2006.

Even though companies like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Zynga are private, you can still buy stock in them. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is now investigating the background of this private stock trading and is conducting investigations. The SEC sent out requests for information from the companies that facilitate the private company stock trading.

The SEC is investigating the departure of former Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) CEO Mark Hurd. Hurd is believed to have shared inside information with a former H-P event hostess in 2008 about the company’s $13.9 billion acquisition of EDS.

Mark Cuban is one of the craziest billionaires in the world. He is offering to finance an investigation against himself… The SEC is investigating Cuban for an insider trading case and they told him that their lawyers could take up to 8 months to look into the full investigation. Cuban wants the case to speed up so he is offering to fund part of it himself. The SEC told Mark that they hope to get their lawyers started on the case by next March so that the documents are ready to go by 2012. Cuban would pay the overtime fees for the lawyers or retaining lawyers on a freelance basis. [New York Post]

Intel Corporation has been taking a bit of heat from the government lately, both domestic and abroad.  In May, the European Union fined Intel $1.45 billion over anti-competitive practices.  And two months ago Intel received a letter last week that PCs in Cuba contain Celeron processors even though there is an embargo.

Dealing with the European Union
Interestingly ombudsman P. Nikiforos Diamandouros criticized the EU for not recording the case file in the decision against the chipmaker.  And a Dell executive cited AMD’s performance being poor as the reason why the PC manufacturing company chose Intel as their supplier.  This makes the verdict of the decision to penalize Intel seem a bit off.  More details to follow as discussions arise on this topic.

Dealing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
The SEC sent Intel a confidential letter on June 4th stating the following:
“We are aware of a May 2008 news report that PCs in Cuba contain your Celeron processors. Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria are identified by the State Department as state sponsors of terrorism, and are subject to U.S. economic sanctions and export controls.”

In addition, the SEC wrote “We note that your Form 10-K does not include disclosure regarding contacts with Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria. Please describe to us the nature and extent of any past, current, and anticipated contacts with the referenced countries, whether through distributors, resellers, licensees, or other direct or indirect arrangements.”

The Cubans have PCs that have Intel Celeron processors with 80GB hard drives and 512MB of RAM.  They also have the Windows XP operating system.  Intel responded with the following letter:

“Intel has no business contacts with the Subject Countries, either directly or indirectly through tacit agreement with its customers. Intel does not provide products or technology to the Subject Countries….”

To be honest, perhaps it is a good thing that all the Celerons are ending up in Cuba.  They should even take computers marked with “dual-core” processors.  And let’s give the Americans more Core 2 Duos!

Google has reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission that they have invested $2.6 million in the genetic testing startup 23andMe as part of a Series B round of funding.  23andMe was co-founded by Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s wife Anne Wojcicki.

It is uncertain whether the deal was made directly through Google or through their Ventures subsidiary.  The $2.6 million round of fund was part of a $12.6 million Series B round.  The other $10 million came from Sergey Brin’s personal wealth of $12 billion.  This brings 23andMe’s total funding to about $21.6 million.  Other investors include Genentech, New Enterprise Associates, and Mohr Davidow Ventures.

Google owns a minority interest in 23andMe and also plans to lease space to the genetics company.  Google wrote in the filing that they took measures to ensure the decision before investing to make the agreement was free of conflict of interest.  Sergey Brin was not part of the investment discussions according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

[via BusinessInsider/NYT]