PETALUMA, Calif.,Oct. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The hearingin a controversial federal injunction case that was filed inFederal District Court in San Franciscoagainst the Small Business Administration (SBA) has been abruptly canceled.

Professor Charles Tiefer, one of the nation's leading expertsin federal contracting law and former Commissioner of Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, submitted adeclaration to the court in support of the ASBL case.

"This case presents one of the small business community'smajor grievances," said Professor Tiefer after being notified the hearinghad been canceled. "Advocates for small business have a right to be heardabout how the share of small business in government contracts has been wronglyheld down."

The American Small Business League (ASBL) isseeking a federal injunction against the SBA to halt two illegal policies that haveshortchanged legitimate small businesses out of over $2trillion dollars in federal contracts over the last ten years.

Dozens of ASBL supporters representing minority, woman andservice-disabled veteran-owned small businesses planned on attending thehearing.  Upon being notified that the hearing was canceled, severalgroups decided to stage a protest in front of the San Francisco FederalCourthouse. Enraged by the rampant abuses uncovered in federal small businesscontracting programs, they want to bring this issue to the attention of thenational media.

Federal law mandates small businesses receive a minimum of 23% of all federalcontracts. Within that goal are separate goals for small businesses owned bywomen, minorities and service-disabled veterans.

The ASBL is seeking to stop the SBA'slongstanding policy of falsifying the federal government's compliance with the23% small business contracting goals by excluding the majority of the totalfederal acquisition budget from those calculations. The Congressional Budget Office reportedan acquisition budget of $1.2 trillion in 2015,which would mean small businesses are legally entitled to a minimum of $276 billion. In 2015, the SBA only used an acquisitionbudget of $370 billion, (a major decline from $1.2 trillion) thus inflating their numbers andfalsifying their claim that small businessesreceived 24.9% of all federal contracts in 2015.

The ASBL estimates that as opposed to the $276 billion legitimate small businesses should havereceived in 2015, they likely received between $35 to $40billion or just 3% of all federal contracts.

In addition, the ASBL seeks to stop the SBA from diverting billions of dollars infederal small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms and theirsubsidiaries.  

A Government Accountability Office investigation uncovered the SBA had falsified thegovernment's compliance with the 23% small business contracting goal byincluding  billions of dollars in federal small business contracts to over5,300 Fortune 500 firms and other large businesses.

In 2008, President Obama released the statement, "It is time to end the diversion offederal small business contracts to corporate giants."

Judge Chhabria is expected to issue his ruling within the nexttwo weeks to either allow the ASBL's case to move forward ordismiss the case as the SBA has requested.

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