A small-business advocate has won a dayin court with Pentagon attorneys to argue whether the Defense Department shouldrelease shielded internal documents that the plaintiff argues will reveal agovernment bias against small defense contractors.

Lloyd Chapman, founder of the Petaluma,Calif.-based American Small Business League, for years has sought to expose theworkings of the 28-year-old ComprehensiveSubcontracting Plan Test Program designed to "determine if comprehensivesubcontracting plans on a corporate, division or plant-wide basis [instead offor individual contracts] would lead to increased opportunities for smallbusinesses."

Chapman argues the program covers upways in which large contractors get work intended for eligible smallbusinesses, and even the Pentagon has expressed a desire for Congress toterminate the program as not effective in organizing contact awards.

On April 12, the small business leagueannounced a new stage in its ongoingsuit against the helicopter maker Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. (acquired by Lockheed Martin in 2015) and the DOD. U.S. District Court Judge WilliamAlsup of the Northern District of California, last weekset December as the time for a full trial that will include discovery andas many as 10 depositions from the Defense Department on the mysteriousprogram. "The ASBL believes the release of the information will prove thePentagon has defrauded small businesses out of over two trillion dollars insubcontracts since the program was established in 1989," the league said.

Sikorsky had appealed a 2014 loss indistrict court to the 9th Circuit, which this January ruled in favor of thecompany and the Pentagon. During the litigation, the league reported, Sikorskyargued that parent company Lockheed Martin was a competitor that would gain anunfair advantage with the release of the information submitted to the CSPTP.

But when the 9th Circuit Court remandedthe case back to the District Court this January, the league was given anopportunity by the Justice Department to press for a trial—considered unusualin FOIA cases. "So it would be more like a David and Goliath," the districtjudge said in a 2014 hearing described by the league. "You get to come inthere and be the underdog again against the big company and against the biggovernment. They are trying to suppress the evidence."

A spokesman for Sikorsky told GovernmentExecutive that "at this time Sikorsky is not a party to the ongoing caseand has no additional comment."

A Pentagon spokesman said the departmentdoes not comment on pending litigation.

Chapman told Government Executivethat he is emotional over what he called a "historic" development.

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