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In its latest ad campaign, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is touting blatantly inflated claims about the impact of lawsuits, FactCheck.org reports.

The Chamber asserts that “52 percent of all lawsuits” target small businesses. But when the non-profit watchdog factcheck.org reanalyzed the exact same data the Chamber itself cites, that figure was revealed to be actually somewhere between 5 percent and 8 percent.

“Based on this study, the Chamber would have been correct to say that up to 53 percent of all the federal lawsuits against businesses involve small firms,” FactCheck reports. “It’s false to claim that half of ‘all’ lawsuits target small businesses.”

The study the Chamber cites was conducted by the Small Business Administration. It was based on 12,102 randomly drawn federal lawsuits, 14.8 percent of which were determined to potentially involve any business at all – small or large. The study authors then took a small sample of those business cases, and determined that about half targeted small businesses.

The Chamber’s statistics don’t support reality, but do support its wrong-headed, anti-accountability agenda.

The misinformation began airing nationally in late December and will continue through the end of January. That the Chamber has to so shamelessly misrepresent the facts to advertise its agenda is evidence not just of a misguided effort, but also that the pro-corporate accountability, pro-civil justice voice needs to be that much louder.

2 Comments

  1. Gravatar for Steve Lombardi
    Steve Lombardi

    Ray, I wonder where the Chamber gets their funding? Any ideas? Any Internet locations that show the sources of funding?

  2. Mike Bryant

    It's a lie and they have no problem promoting and spreading the frivolous arguments. Why? they want to shut the courthouse doors to everyone else but them. Every one of their commercials has this kind of flawed information. Makes you wonder what they see in the mirror each day.

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