Judge denies SBA request to stay order for informaton

A federal judge on Tuesday formally denied the U.S. Small Business Administration’s request for a stay and said the agency must release detailed information about what companies received loans from the $659 billion Paycheck Protection Program by Dec. 1, reports Matthew Kish of the Portland Business Journal.

Kish reports, “In a 10-page opinion, U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg wrote that he saw ‘no basis for any further delay.’

“The SBA now has one week to decide whether to formally appeal to a higher court.

“On Nov. 13, Boasberg partially granted the SBA’s request for a stay — basically a pause — in the lawsuit, which was filed in mid-May by the Washington Post, Bloomberg, Dow Jones, ProPublica and The New York Times.

“Portland Business Journal parent company American City Business Journals, ABC, CNN, NBC, the Associated Press and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined as plaintiffs in late May.

“Each of the news organization has been unsuccessful at getting detailed information about the program through the Freedom of Information Act.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.