Toyota Motor Company (TM) continues to find itself in arguably the biggest crisis in the auto maker's history, and today more accusations were made against the company. The company is back in the news today with accusations that Toyota tried to hide data in lawsuits filed by Toyota drivers injured in crashes.

The accusation came from New York Democrat, Edolphus Towns. Towns stated that the company deliberately shielded some of its design and testing data, and in many instances settled lawsuits in order to avoid turning over the information.

With so much uncertainty surrounding the recent recalls by Toyota Motor Company (TM), the House committee that is investigating the recalls has asked the company's President to come and testify before it.

Over the past several weeks there have been more reported deaths resulting from sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles, and the House committee's chairman announced his desire to have Toyota's president, Akio Toyoda, to come in for testimony.

Across the country, college classes are starting. In each of these classrooms, students are struggling with calculus, trudging through Candide, and wondering just what the hell they're going to do with their degrees upon graduation. The last of these is characteristic of every college student, especially those of us, with the foresight fortitude recklessness zeal to major in liberal arts fields (in my case, Philosophy).

The anxiety is a bit higher this year, given a high rate of unemployment, the likelihood of a "jobless recovery" and the fact that it could take years for destroyed value to be recovered.

On Monday, convicted con man Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in jail, and today federal authorities took possession of his $7 million Manhattan penthouse, forcing his wife to leave and look for somewhere else to live.

Ruth Madoff was told ahead of time that she would be forced to vacate her lush Manhattan penthouse, and reportedly she did leave the property this afternoon around 1 PM EST. The penthouse, on East 64th Street will be sold, with the proceeds being used to help reimburse the victims of the nations largest ever Ponzi scheme.

Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM) announced today that it would not challenge the ruling of an appeals court stating that it was to pay $470 million in interest on the $507.5 million judgment related to the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill took place back in 1989, and victims have been trying to get some money from Exxon ever since. In 1994 the victims won a $5 billion judgment, but Exxon has fought that ruling for the past 15 years.

Bernie Madoff was in federal court today, where he was given a 150 year sentence for charges related to his Ponzi scheme.

Reports from the courtroom state that Madoff, the mastermind behind the largest ever Ponzi scheme, showed little to no emotion today when he learned that he would be spending the rest of his life in a jail cell. Due to federal sentencing guidelines, Madoff must serve at least 80% of his sentence, so he will not be eligible for parole until 2129.

Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford pleaded 'not guilty' today in a federal court arraignment to charges that he ran a $7 billion Ponzi scheme. Not only is Stanford being charged with running the Ponzi scheme, there are also allegations that he paid $100,000 to Leroy King, the former chief executive officer of Antigua's Financial Services Regulatory Commission.

This day has been coming for a while. It seems as though the government has been looking into Stanford's investment company since 2005, but it was only this past February that they shut down the Houston office of his investment company, Stanford Financial Group.

At the end of last month, American auto maker Chrysler announced that it was entering into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and now we are starting to hear reports of plans to close a large amount of dealerships next month.

In all, Chrysler has decided to eliminate 789 out of its 3,200 dealerships that it says are just not pulling their weight in terms of sales. The company stated that its network of dealerships has become antiquated, and there currently exists too much competition between its dealerships.

For months we have been questioning the fate of America's big 3 automakers, and today one of those 3, Chrysler LLC, made it official and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

While no one likes to see a company go bankrupt, in this case, the writing has been on the wall for some time now, and there are plenty of reasons to think that filing Chapter 11 is the best thing for the ailing automaker.

Investors with Bernard Madoff who withdrew their money before the world's largest investment fraud should not celebrate their good fortune. According to Bloomberg News' Ann Woolner, these people may be sucked into the scandal even if they had no intention of ripping anyone off.

"Investors who benefit from fraud, even if they knew nothing of any misdeeds, can be called on to return the fictitious earnings from their investments, even their principal if they redeemed it before the fraud was exposed," Woolner writes. "That money would be added to Madoff assets, to be divvied up among creditors, including the very same investors who had been forced to contribute to the pool."

Remember, the Madoff investors who did not get wiped out benefited (unknowingly) from the proceeds of a fraud. They did not earn legitimate profits.

The question is what should happen next. Should the lucky Madoff investors be able to keep their gains even if technically they don't deserve them? I don't know. I am not a lawyer nor am I a clergyman. These are going to be tough, heart-breaking decisions.

But it seems to me that the Madoff "haves" are going to be called to help the "have-nots." Remember, Madoff's victims will be lucky if a fraction of their money is recovered. They still have not recouped all of money that people lost in Sam Israel's Bayou Fund.

The pain for Madoff's investors will last years.

While the horrific oil spill by the Exxon Valdez happened all the way back in 1989 (yes that was 19 years ago!), Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) is still in litigation over how much it should be forced to pay in damages.

Last month, Exxon Mobil won a big victory when the Supreme Court (in a 5-3 decision) lowered the company's punitive damages from $2.5 billion all the way down to $507.5 million. While this was good news for Exxon Mobil, there was one little detail left to work out -- interest on all that money. Of course, Exxon Mobil does not want to pay that interest, and today the Supreme Court decided that a lower court needs to make this decision.

So just how much interest are we talking about here? Roughly $500 million and counting, as Exxon announced earlier that the victims of the oil spill have requested $488 million in interest. This works out to about $15,000 per victim.

What does this amount mean to Exxon? Ten hours of sales. That's right, ten hours. You would think the company would just pay the money and be done with the whole mess, but Exxon will continue to fight and will have its day in the lower court of appeals.

This week, I looked over the financials of a struggling business (essentially, the slowing economy is taking a toll). I was seeing if I could find some ways to cut costs.

Looking through the line items, I noticed some large legal bills. And, digging some more, I learned that the company was using a big-time law firm.

"You really don't need this kind of level of legal services," I said. "Besides, you can shop around for an attorney."

I also had some other suggestions:

DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Legal: You can gather your own legal advice for free. Just doing a routine Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) search, you'll notice many legal websites. However, you need to be wary. Do you know the quality of the content?

I think a better approach is to focus on well-established sources like:

• AllBusiness.com: The site is chock full of helpful content and is backed by Dun & Bradstreet (NYSE: DNB).
• U.S. Legal Forms: You'll find thousands of vetted legal forms (at affordable prices).
• Nolo: Founded in the early 1970s, this company is now the premier publisher of self-help legal guides (and I've bought quite a few books from them).

Affordable Service Providers: If a DIY approach seems scary, there is a middle ground. There are online services that help with such things as incorporations, trademarks, copyrights, and even patents.

The top player in the sector is LegalZoom. Actually, I recently had a chance to visit the headquarters, which has an impressive setup. In a way, it's an efficient supply chain – with a call center, experts, proofreaders and so on that process legal documents.

More importantly, you'll only be spending a fraction of what a big-time attorney will charge you.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook (www.mergerbook.com) and is also a principal in Averiware, which provides an ERP system to small and midsize businesses.

U.S. lawmakers are going to get their chance today to ask executives from five of the world's largest oil companies what their take is on current gasoline prices.

Executives from the top three American oil companies -- Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM), Chevron (NYSE: CVX) and ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) -- will be present at today's hearing, as well as executives from BP (NYSE: BP) and Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS.A). While the executives are predictably going to blame the current high gasoline prices on surging oil, it will still be interesting to see just how hard lawmakers hit the executives.

For the executives, it can't be a good feeling to be walking into today's hearing. The hearing is being called "Drilling for Answers: Oil Company Profits, Runaway Prices and the Pursuit of Alternatives." The hearings will be chaired by Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, who in the past has been a vocal critic of the oil industry.

Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) lost a patent ruling against rival Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM). That was some time ago. It prevents Qualcomm from selling certain chips in the US. That hurts its profits and makes its handset partners very unhappy.

Things got worse for the wireless chip company. An appeals court turned down its request to temporarily start selling the chips again. According to The Wall Street Journal, "The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, without providing details, ruled Tuesday that Qualcomm had not met its burden of proof to win a stay pending appeal of the injunction."

Qualcomm's bad patent habits have it in court cases against its largest customer, Nokia (NYSE: NOK), as well as Broadcom. That creates a nightmare for shareholders.

Although handset sales may be slowing a bit. Qualcomm has a wonderful business providing chips and software to the industry. That franchise took its stock from $15 less than five years ago to $53 in mid-2006. Disputes with customers and rivals have helped push that share price down to under $38.

With the new court ruling,Qualcom's share price is likely to stay down a lot longer.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.