While the most recent golden age of corporate scandals has passed Tyco and Enron seem like a distant memory), there were still enough misdeeds and mistakes in and around Wall Street to keep business sections lively.

From student loan bribes to subprime loan blindness, from insider trading to illicit campaign donations, here are Portfolio.com's list of the Top 10—er, Bottom 10—business bungles of 2007.

1. Mattel Learns the High Cost of Low Cost

If there are two words that new parents fear more than "diaper change," it's "lead paint" or "choking hazard." Mattel had the unenviable job this August of telling parents around the world that those Fisher Price toys their babies love to gnaw on were quite possibly smothered in toxic lead paint. Since August 1, the American toymaker has recalled more than 20 million Chinese-made toys for reasons relating to lead toxicity, choking hazards, or tiny magnets that could be swallowed. As a result, Mattel chairman and C.E.O. Robert A. Eckert has been doing back flips all fall to recover the toymaker's image in time for the crucial holiday shopping period.

Not be outdone as a crusading attorney general by his predecessor Elliot Spitzer, Andrew Cuomo made a public show this spring of bearing his teeth at the $85 billion student loan industry. New York's new attorney general uncovered dozens of loan companies giving kickbacks to schools and school officials for steering students to certain lenders. These immoral, and sometimes illegal, bribes led to inflated loan prices for the kiddies, who where wholly unaware that their university's "preferred lender" might have garnered that title by giving away two first-class airline tickets to Maui. Federal legislation is currently in the works to reform oversight of the student loan industry.

Everybody loves a good proxy fight! Especially when it's heavyweight champion Carl Icahn in the ring. In January, Icahn initiated a crusade to restore mobile company Motorola to profitability. A tug of war ensued between Icahn and chairman and C.E.O. Edward J. Zander—Icahn gunning for a seat on the board and agitating for Zander's ouster; Zander sniping that Icahn lacked the time and expertise to be an effective board member. Icahn cried uncle after he failed to garner enough support for his insurgency at a shareholder meeting in May, and it looks like Zander is having the last laugh: Motorola posted better-than-expected results for the third quarter and forecasts a profit in the fourth.

• Profile of Ed Zander by Kevin Maney.
• Video of Ed Zander interview by Kevin Maney.