The Small Business Administration has removed company-specific revenue and employee figures from a public database.

The online Central Contractor Registry is a searchable database of information on companies that qualify for federal small business awards. Company files contain contact information, a description of the business and other details, and -- until Dec. 12 -- a firm's three-year average annual revenue and number of employees.

Now, in place of the revenue and employee numbers, the Web site offers the message: "A firm's actual revenues and number of employees are not releasable under the Freedom Of Information Act."

The SBA says it is considering whether to keep the information off line.

"SBA has recently received a number of complaints from small businesses that this information is confidential and proprietary and should not be released," says Mike Stamler director of SBA's press office. "They argue that information on the number of their employees and revenue was given to the government involuntarily and under a pledge of confidence. Several procurement authorities also questioned this practice.

"Therefore, in response to these objections SBA removed this information from the Web site, while it considers the legal and procurement issues involved. We hope to resolve them shortly and will publicly advise interested parties of the agency's decision. This doesn't mean SBA will cease using this information for verification purposes; it will simply not be publicly available."

The American Small Business League says the government removed employee and revenue from the site to avert increased scrutiny over contracting practices. The trade association advocates policies that benefit small businesses.

Federal agencies are supposed to award 23 percent of the value of direct contracts to small businesses, but private research companies have found that much of the small business contracts actually go to companies that outgrew the size limits or acquired small business contracts through acquisition.

"This is another attempt by the government to keep Congress, the public, and the media from being able to prove that the Pentagon, the General Services Administration, and other federal agencies have completely falsified their small business numbers for several years," says the group's president Lloyd Chapman in a statement.

The SBA recently issued new rules that agencies won't receive credit toward the goal for awards delivered through long-term small business contracts to companies that no longer qualify as small.

Companies will have to recertify their size status every five years and any time renewal options are exercised on the contracts. If the contract holder no longer meets size standards, the agency can't count awards toward the goals. Small contractors also now have to notify the government within 30 days if they are no longer a small business because of an acquisition or merger.

The American Small Business League says it plans to file a Freedom of Information Act request to make the revenue and employee information in the federal small business database public again.

The ongoing battle over alleged small business contract fraud in the federal government has taken an Orwellian twist, according to one small business advocate.

Lloyd Chapman, president of the American Small Business League, claims that the government has hastily removed information from Defense Department files that reveal the revenues and number of employees of government contractors.

The move, he said, was prompted after the government learned that his group was compiling information for an investigative report by a television network. Chapman says his group will request the data under the federal Freedom of Information Act or sue for it in court.

It would be the group's fourth lawsuit — all of them successful — in its campaign to uncover the unlawful awarding of small business contracts to major corporations.

In the month since the Small Business Administration published new contracting rules, a growing number of critics are taking the agency to task over a loophole in size standards for small companies.

At issue is a provision that requires companies to recertify their size after five years instead of yearly as recommended by the SBA's Inspector General.

Charles Tiefer, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, examined the law on behalf of the American Small Business League and said it would do little to resolve the problem of large companies receiving contracts earmarked for smaller firms.

At a trade association seminar for government service providers in Arlington, Virginia, Tom Peltier, a mergers-and-acquisitions expert, noted that the new rules do not apply to "task orders" (contracts limited to a specific task within the framework of a larger contract), which can still count toward small business goals regardless of company size.

The Small Business Administration has finally revealed the mystery company that was at the center of a contentious lawsuit over federal small business contracting fraud.

The company, GTSI, a software and technology vendor, reported to stockholders in 1999 that an acquisition would no longer allow it to qualify as a small business under federal contracting guidelines. Yet it continued to solicit and win $1.5 billion in contracts earmarked for small firms.

In June 2005, the SBA Inspector General recommended barring the firm from competing for contracts since it misrepresented its size, but the agency took no further action. The American Small Business League (ASBL) sued after the SBA refused to identify the company.

"For the Inspector General to recommend that GTSI be debarred, the evidence against the company must have been very compelling," said ASBL President Lloyd Chapman. "It's time that the FBI step in and investigate the SBA's handling of these matters."