Small businesses are a cornerstone of a strong U.S. economy and a critical element in the nation’s economic recovery. When a federal agency with regulatory authority over small businesses enforces rules through excessive or unfair actions, it can drain a company’s resources to the point of threatening their survival.

The Office of the National Ombudsman will serve as a liaison between the business owner and the federal enforcement agency, forwarding the business owner’s comments to the agency taking the action for a high level review. The agency will be asked to consider the fairness of their enforcement action.

SBA will then send a copy of the agency’s response to the small business owner. In some cases, fines have been lowered or eliminated and decisions changed in favor of the small business owner.

During the course of a year the SBA’s Office of the National Ombudsman will host regulatory fairness hearings in cities across the country.   These public forums are opportunities for small business owners to voice their concerns about federal regulatory and compliance enforcement actions without fear of retaliation.  

Regulatory Fairness Board members—appointed by SBA’s National Ombudsman and representing business owners in SBA’s 10 national regions—support and help organize the local regulatory fairness hearings.

The SBA also works with federal agencies with regulatory authority over small businesses, encouraging those officials to pay attention to entrepreneurs’ comments about enforcement activities and to address those concerns promptly.

In addition, SBA’s Office of the National Ombudsman files an annual report with Congress where federal regulatory agencies are rated based on substantiated comments received from small businesses and input from the Regulatory Fairness Boards.

SBA’s National Ombudsman is very interested in continuing and expanding working relationships with trade associations, chambers of commerce and other local business groups to enable more small business owners to take advantage of this resource, while also identifying the federal regulatory issues impacting local small businesses.

For more information about SBA’s Office of the National Ombudsman, visit the Web site at www.sba.gov/ombudsman.  

Business owners may also contact the office toll-free at 1-888-734-3247, or by e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

We invite all of you to get a discussion going.  Please submit your comments at the end of this article, Thanks.

Esther Vassar is the National Ombudsman and assistant administrator for Regulatory Enforcement Fairness for the Small Business Administration (SBA).  Her office assists small businesses when they experience excessive or unfair federal regulatory enforcement actions, such as repetitive audits or excessive fines and other unfair actions by a federal agency.