One day after the Associated General Contractors of America sued the U.S. Small Business Administration and Office of Management and Budget to prompt a language change in the questionnaire used to evaluate if applicants are eligible to have Paycheck Protection Program loans forgiven, SBA issued added guidance related to the document.

该机构于12月9日表示，在审查公司的诚信证明中，“经济不确定性”使得支持借款人的“持续行动”所需的PPP贷款将会研究申请人的“个人情况”。

[View SBA Dec. 9 guidance这里。看到p。19日,问答# 53。)

AGC'slawsuit, filed on Dec. 8 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, contends that the group “is challenging the legality of the questionnaire and the legal adequacy of the process undertaken by both SBA and OMB in developing, approving and publishing the questionnaire for use.”

AGC表示，该申请涉及“SBA现在正在制定其宽恕确定的方式，甚至首先是PPP贷款的第二次猜测借款人资格。”

AGC 'Encouraged'

Brian Turmail, an AGC spokesperson, said in a Dec. 10 email to ENR that the association was "encouraged" by SBA's new guidance. But he added that "our litigation remains active" while it seeks "additional clarifications and guarantees" that the agency would base its reviews of the forgiveness applications "on the conditions at the time of the loan application, and not after...."

In its lawsuit, AGC contends that the process that led to the form and the questionnaire itself are in violation of the Paperwork Reduction Act and Administrative Procedures Act.

It asks that the court limit the use of information that companies enter on the questionnaire until SBA changes the data and makes it available to the public.

In addition, AGC asks the court to permanently block SBA from basing a decision to deny an applicant’s petition for PPP loan forgiveness only on information in the borrower’s submitted questionnaire.

The group also asks the court to make the questionnaire available for public comment for at least 60 days and, after reviewing the comments, to revise the form based on those submissions.

AGC also contends that OMB authorized SBA to use the questionnaire “in complete secrecy,” rather than releasing it and allowing a public-comment period.

“Resorting to a secret form that disregards congressional intent and retroactively changes the criteria for a loan is not due diligence; it is unlawful and needs to stop before employers are irrevocably harme.” Stephen E. Sandherr, AGC president and CEO, said in astatement,

An SBA spokesperson said in a statement emailed to ENR that the agency "does not comment on pending lawsuits and litigation.”

与机构官员的讨论ls

在提交诉讼之前，AGC代表“与联邦官员的冗长对话”有关PPP问卷和相关事宜，纳米埃在12月8日的电子邮件中告诉REN。新利18备用

He added that those officials “made numerous promises to us, some of which they fulfilled, but too many others they did not.”

该协会最近加入了几百份其他商业团体，要求国会有金额贷款宽恕的金额无税。

But when it came to the issues connected to the questionnaire, Turmail said, AGC did not approach other associations about joining the lawsuit. “This one is our fight because so many of our members have expressed concerns about the SBA questionnaire to us," he said.

The lawsuit states that the questionnaire does not ask borrowers to provide information about their operations, as of the time they applied for the loan, generally done last spring.

相反，AGC辩称，调查问卷询问后来的财务信息。例如，投诉称，调查问卷向当前的银行陈述和其他有关公司当前流动性的其他信息。

“This contradiction is deeply troubling to many borrowers because their success or failure over the balance of 2020 could not possibly have been knowable in those early days of the pandemic when the economy was headed into a tailspin,” says the filing.

PPP Background

PPP was established in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security, or CARES, Act, which was signed into law in March.

Under the program, companies that applied for a loan could apply later to SBA to have the amount forgiven if they used the proceeds only for payroll, rent and other basic expenses.

Congress included an initial $349 billion for the program. When that was exhausted in less than two weeks, lawmakers later provided an additional $310 billion.

But interest in the program waned and PPP expired on Aug. 8, with $134 billion uncommitted to loans.

SBA also reports that as of Nov. 22, it had received forgiveness requests totaling $83.2 billion.

故事于12月10日更新。来自SBA的新指导文件。