I've been asked several times my take on damages to TECO because of this petition.

I'd say they are in the 5 million to 25 million dollar range without the treble aspect.

Your next statement could be, the stock has gone up since the filing.

That makes no difference and one could say, yea, the stock would be a lot higher if the BK wasn't filed. Most likely true.

My advice to the attorney and the company is not to attack that aspect. It's costly time consuming and the amount of the award is too uncertain.

Attack the pubic company image and the relationships problems it's caused. Also attack the problems with funding which could make TECO in fact insolvent if the complete ability to raise money is lost. It certainly has diminished greatly and TECO is unable to get certain deals it once did. Hamdi and the GOB relations have been strained considerably.

When you just look at the ramifications of a BK filing has on a public company and it's stockholders it's quite clear, 5 million is nothing.

Whoever filed this petition is in for a very rude awakening. You'd have to be a complete fool to file such a petition and not have substantial substantive evidence to make it work.

These fools can't even get service to the court.(they most likely don't want too) much less have the 500k+ it will cost to litigate and the mountains of evidence that will be needed.

Hell, they don't even have a judgment to present as to persuade the court there really is a debt.

Skulduggery at it's finest.