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The misdemeanor charge carries a federal prison sentence of up to a year and a fine of up to $200,000 for the company, said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office. Lawyers for Typhoon could not be reached for comment. But the restaurant told the Los Angeles Times it accepts responsibility and will pay a fine. The investigation began in October when two members of the team that made "The Cove" visited The Hump, officials said. "The Cove," which exposes the annual killing of dolphins at a Japanese fishing village, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary on Sunday. The restaurant, located at the Santa Monica Airport, is known for its exotic fare. Its Web site asks diners to surrender themselves to its chefs for "a culinary adventure ... unlike any that you have previously experienced." Armed with a hidden camera, the two women captured the waitress serving them whale and horse meat and identifying them as such, a federal criminal complaint said. A receipt from the restaurant at the end of the meal identified their selection as "whale" and "horse" with the cost -- $85 -- written next to them. The women snuck pieces of the meat into a napkin and later sent them for examination to a researcher at Oregon State University. He identified the whale sample to be that of sei whale, prosecutors said.

Proponents of comprehensive regulatory reform hope for sweeping measures to protect consumers from predatory lending, rein in high-stakes Wall Street trading in arcane derivatives, boost capital requirements for banks that want to bet big with depositors' money and spread some regulatory sunshine on the dark pools of the “shadow banking system” that caught regulators flat-footed when the market spiraled into the abyss in the fall of 2008. “We cannot afford to let the status quo continue,” Sheila Bair, head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., told a meeting of business economists in Washington. The final law is still in doubt. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., has pressed for reform during a year of intensely partisan bickering. On Friday, Dodd — a lame duck who announced his retirement after disclosures that he accepted favorable terms from subprime lender Countrywide Financial — claimed that the Senate Banking Committee he chairs was “days away” from wrapping up a bill. Any resolution faces a major political hurdle that has drawn the most public attention: a proposal to create a new agency to protect consumers from predatory lending and other abusive financial practices. While the "systemic risks" to the financial system may represent a bigger threat in dollar terms, voters might be more focused on the consumer impact.Dodd said that’s not hard to understand.“The subject matter of derivatives and swaps and the issue of systemic risk and too-big-to- fail seem somewhat removed from the general public,” he told CNBC after the Senate compromise was reached. “Watching my credit card go to 32 percent rates and huge fees, watching prepayment penalties on mortgages, these are things that millions of people understand.”