The Securities and Exchange Commission is racing to file charges related to the financial crisis before a five-year statute of limitations runs out, the Wall Street Journal reports. It is expected to file civil charges against those involved in Delphinus CDO 2007-1, a $1.6 billion mortgage-bond deal, including Mizuho Financial Group, the Japanese bank that underwrote and sold it.

Since the deal was completed July 19, 2007, the SEC may need to file charges in the next week, though a federal appeals court ruled in a case last year that the five years begins when the wrongdoing should have been discovered, not when it happened. 

A criminal investigation into Delphinus is already in-process, though no charges have been filed.

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