PETALUMA, CA--(Marketwired - May 15, 2014) - According to the American Small Business League, the United States Army is refusing to release subcontracting reports on Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The Army will not give any explanation for their refusal to provide the documents. The reports could show that SAIC may be in violation of their contracts with the Army and may have failed to comply with their subcontracting requirements.
The American Small Business League (ASBL) has filed a case against the Army in Federal District Court in San Francisco under the Freedom of Information Act. The case was filed after the Army refused to comply with a FOIA request from the ASBL for the most recent subcontracting reports for SAIC.
The ASBL believes the Army's refusal to comply with their FOIA request could be an indication that the SAIC subcontracting reports may contain fraudulent information relating to their contracts with the Army.
The ASBL has won dozens of FOIA cases against the Pentagon in the past forcing the release of thousands of pages of government documents that exposed fraud and abuse in federal contracting programs. This issue has been the subject of dozens of federal investigations.
The Office of Government Accountability released Report 10-108 that stated, "By failing to hold firms accountable, SBA and contracting agencies have sent a message to the contracting community that there are no penalties or consequences for committing fraud."
Every year for the last nine years the Office of Inspector General for the Small Business Administration has named the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants like SAIC to be the number one management problem at the SBA.
A recent legal opinion by Professor Charles Tiefer, one of the nation's leading experts on federal contracting law, found small businesses have been fraudulently cheated out of billions of dollars in federal contracts.
ASBL President Lloyd Chapman stated, "The fact that the Pentagon has consistently refused to release small business subcontracting data is a clear indication they are still trying to hide the rampant fraud and abuse in contracting programs that have been uncovered in dozens of federal investigations and reports in the mainstream media."
The ASBL expects to prevail in this case since the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 1994 that subcontracting reports are releasable under the Freedom of Information Act.