A small-business advocacy group has asked a federal court to force the General Services Administration to restore various types of contracting data that the public can no longer access, according to court documents.

The American Small Business League alleges the Obama administration's recent changes to the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation may have eliminated access to scores of contracting data that identify small-business contracts in the governmentwide database, according to court documents filed March 30 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

The group said officials eliminated from the searchable FPDS-NG fields that allow viewers to see what contracts are set aside for small businesses and which companies received federal contracts.

“The removal of the contractor identity and small business identifier fields represents a major move towards decreased transparency in federal contracting data,” the group wrote in the court documents.

Investigators and other groups have used this type of data to uncover fraud and abuses in small-business contracting, according to the filing. The league said watchdog groups like it may be prevented from further investigations into fraudulent behavior without access to the federal data, according to the filings.

Source: http://fcw.com/articles/2010/04/02/small-business-contract-data-case.aspx

The American Small Business League filed a motion for a preliminary injunction on Wednesday against the U.S. General Services Administration to restore recently removed aspects of a database used to monitor federal contracts.

In the motion filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the league objected to the removal of two identifying fields from the searchable Federal Procurement Data System – Next Generation. One of the fields identified small businesses, and the other field identified the names of contract recipients.

The system, the government's electronic database for federal contracting data, is used by federal agencies, watchdogs and the general public to oversee the procurement process, according to the motion. Agencies are required to report all contracts worth more than $3,000, as well as subsequent modifications.

The General Services Administration ordered these two changes on March 12. The league originally filed its lawsuit, American Small Business League v. Martha N. Johnson, on March 8 in preparation for the changes. Johnson serves as administrator of the GSA.

The league argues that the data removal violates the transparency standards articulated in the Federal Procurement Policy Act of 1974. It argues that the information at issue must be immediately restored to the publicly accessible database because the lack of access creates an “irreplaceable harm,” adding that the information “has been used in the past to identity instances where contracts set aside for small businesses were awarded to Fortune 500 corporations.”

The league estimates that $1 trillion worth of contracts intended for small business have gone to big businesses in the past decade, according to a Wednesday news release.

A nonpartisan advocacy group formed in 2004, the league is represented by Robert Belshaw, of counsel to Gutierrez & Associates in San Francisco.

Source: http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2010/04/smallbusiness-group-objects-to-federal-contract-database-change.html

The American Small Business League, a Petaluma-based small business lobbying organization, is suing the Obama Administration over disposal of federal contracting data. The ASBL says the data will show the federal government has ignored its own laws by giving contracts meant for small businesses to some of the nation’s largest corporations.

The motion for a preliminary injunction has been filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco against the General Services Administration (GSA). The purpose of the injunction is to force the GSA to restore more than a decade's worth of federal contracting data.

On March 12, the Obama Administration implemented changes to the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation that eliminated the socio-economic field, "isSmallBusiness." In past years, Congress, federal agencies, watchdog groups, and the general public used the field to identify large firms that “had fraudulently misrepresented themselves as small businesses to illegally receive billions of dollars in small business contracts,” ASBL says.

Since 2003, more than a dozen federal investigations have uncovered billions of dollars in fraud and abuse in federal small business contracting programs.

The ASBL estimates that over the last decade nearly $1 trillion in contracts intended for small businesses have actually ended up in the hands of Fortune 500 corporations and other large businesses.

The ASBL's motion for a preliminary injunction will be heard on a 35-calendar day track, according to court documents.

Source: http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=14775