PETALUMA,Calif., Oct. 4, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Federal District Court Judge VinceChhabria has canceled the October 6^thhearing in San Francisco that had been scheduled in the federal injunction casethe American Small Business League (ASBL)had filedagainst the Small Business Administration (SBA). No specific reason was givenfor the cancelation of the hearing. The case will now be decided based on thebriefs that have been filed by both parties.

TheASBL was pursuing a federalinjunction to stop the SBA from divertingbillions of dollars a year in federal small business contracts to Fortune 500firms and thousands of other large businesses. In 2003, the GovernmentAccountability Office (GAO) uncovered the SBA had included billions of dollarsin federal contracts to over 5,300 large businessesto falsify the governments compliance with the 23% small business contractinggoal. Every year since 2005, the SBA Office of Inspector General has named thediversion of federal small business contracts to large businesses as the number one problem at the SBA.In 2008, President Obama released the statement, "It istime to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporategiants."

In2015, the SBA reported contracts to 151 Fortune 500 firms andtheir subsidiaries as small business contracts. Firms the SBA reported as smallbusiness included, Apple, General Electric, IBM, UPS, Hewlett-Packard, HomeDepot, Verizon, Bank of America, Target, Wells Fargo, Pepsi, CVS, Oracle,Raytheon, Microsoft and Procter & Gamble. 

TheASBL was also asking the court to grant an injunction to stop the SBA'slongstanding policy of excludingthe majority of the total federal acquisition budget to falsify compliance withthe 23% small business contracting goal. According to the CongressionalBudget Office, the total federal acquisition budget in 2015 was $1.2trillion, which would mean small businesses should have received a minimum of $276billion. The SBA used a number of less than $370 billion to claimsmall business received 24.9% of all federal contracts in 2015. The ASBL estimates that as opposedto the $276 billion legitimate small businesses should have received in 2015,they likely received between $35 to $40 billion or just 3% of all federalcontracts.   

ASBLattorney Robert Belshaw stated, "I'm disappointed that we won't get achance to present an oral argumentin front of the court. The issues in the case are of critical importance to thenation's 28 million small businesses. It would be unfortunate if the case wasdismissed based on a procedural technicality from the SBA. The merits of ourcase are very strong and we are looking forward to a favorable ruling based onthe strength of our briefs."

TheASBL and their supporters will be holding a protest in front of the FederalBuilding starting at 9:00a.m. Thursday, October 6^th.

JudgeChhabria's ruling in the case is expected within the next two weeks.

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