WASHINGTON—If a recent court ruling is upheld, credit unions and CUSOs will be required to release the names of those to whom they made Paycheck Protection Program loans.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has ordered the Small Business Administration (SBA) to release the names, addresses, and loan amounts for all Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and economic injury disaster loan (EIDL) recipients by Nov. 19, 2020.
The order follows Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, which the SBA attempted to appease through the release of its loan-level data earlier this year, although the data did not include the names, addresses or specific amounts of each loan, NAFCU noted.
In response to the earlier requests, the SBA argued that FOIA exemptions 4 and 6 protect the information by shielding from the disclosure of any “commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential,” as well as “personnel and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
Through the new order, the district court ruled it found the disclosure of the information would dramatically outweigh any limited private interest in non-disclosure.