The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, acting after Fannie Mae published audited financial results for 2007 on Wednesday morning, said the two companies’ mortgage investment limits, currently at around a combined $1.5 billion, would be lifted effective Saturday. Freddie Mac is due to report is financial results on Thursday.

The caps were imposed in 2006 in response to the companies’ multibillion-dollar accounting lapses, thereby limiting their participation in the market for securities backed by home mortgages.

A stockholder-owned company not filing a timely, audited financial statement is hardly an “accounting lapse.”