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Eric S. Benderson

Official · SBA

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Type
Person
Role
Official · SBA
Programs
PPP
Updated

The profile

Individuals whose conduct was challenged or called into question during or after the pandemic. See sources: Womply opposition to stay motion WP Co. v. SBA reply, May 14, 2021 Sokol v. SBA opinion, Sept. 28, 2022

  • Pandemic-program role: The SBA lawyer who co-signed the FTC/SBA joint COVID warning letters.
  • Institution · office: SBA · Office of General Counsel (Litigation & Claims) · Type: career (SES)
  • Tenure (relief-relevant): in role throughout 2020–2022; a decades-long SBA litigator still identified in the role in September 2023.

The job (role mechanics)

  • Level / appointment: Career SES attorney — Associate General Counsel for Litigation and Claims.
  • Reports to: The SBA General Counsel (e.g., Pilkerton, then Biles), within the Office of General Counsel.
  • Core responsibility: The agency's senior in-house litigator: regulatory-enforcement, financial, administrative, and constitutional litigation; during the pandemic he co-signed the SBA side of the FTC/SBA COVID warning letters. Also SBA's ADR official and ACUS representative.
  • Tenure norm: Continuing (career civil servant; does not rotate out with administrations). His actual service: SBA litigator since at least the mid-1980s; in the Litigation & Claims role throughout 2020–2022 and at least until September 2023.

Who they are

Eric S. Benderson is a career Senior Executive Service attorney, the Associate General Counsel for Litigation and Claims at the U.S. Small Business Administration. He is the agency's senior in-house litigator, handling regulatory-enforcement, financial, administrative, and constitutional law, with particular expertise in complex commercial and enforcement litigation involving lenders and Small Business Investment Companies (SBICs). He also serves as SBA's Alternative Dispute Resolution official and the agency's representative to the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS).12

Education

B.A., Syracuse University (member of Phi Kappa Phi, the national scholastic honor society).2

Career before the pandemic

A long-tenured SBA litigator: Benderson has represented the agency in federal court since at least the 1980s, appearing in reported SBA cases such as A.L.T. Corp. v. SBA (5th Cir. 1986) and United States v. Royal Business Funds Corp. (S.D.N.Y. 1983), and across decades of SBIC and lender-enforcement matters.3

Role in the pandemic relief programs

The FTC/SBA warning-letter campaign. The FTC and SBA sent joint warning letters to companies that, in the letters' words, "may be unlawfully misleading small business consumers about federal loans." The letters cited marketing that used the SBA's logo or promised fast funding, and said such claims suggested an affiliation with the SBA or approved PPP lenders. Benderson signed the SBA side of these letters. On the June 22, 2020 letter to Taycor Financial (operator of disasterloanassistance.com), his digital signature is dated 2020.06.22 13:53:40, paired with the FTC's Malini Mithal.4 He is named on the related Lendio (May 14, 2020) letter as well.5

Documents written or signed

  • FTC/SBA joint warning letter to Taycor Financial, June 22, 2020 — co-signed "Eric S. Benderson, Associate General Counsel for Litigation, U.S. Small Business Administration." Archived at 2020-06-taycor financial (text layer present; signature block extracts cleanly).4
  • FTC/SBA joint warning letter to Lendio, Inc., May 14, 2020 — archived at 2020-05-lendio.5

Career after / where they are now

Still identified as Associate General Counsel for Litigation in his 2021 conference bio; we have no departure notice.2

Sources held in this archive

Original source documents and archived captures

Sources (first-party)

  1. Administrative Conference of the United States, contact listing for Eric S. Benderson (SBA). Eric S Benderson 4f8571e6f3becc94 (original: acus.gov · stored capture) (link now dead; copy taken from the Internet Archive, 31 May 2018) ↩
  2. AIRA conference speaker bio, "Eric S. Benderson, Small Business Administration" (Associate General Counsel for Litigation; B.A. Syracuse, Phi Kappa Phi; ADR official; ACUS representative). AIRA conference speaker bio, "Eric S. Benderson, Small Business Administration" Associate General Counsel for Litigat... (original: aira.org · stored capture) ↩
  3. A.L.T. Corp. v. SBA, 801 F.2d 1451 (5th Cir. 1986), A.L.T. Corp. v. SBA , 801 F.2d 1451 5th Cir. 1986, United States v. Royal Business Funds Corp. , 29 B.R. 777 S.D.N.... (original: law.justia.com · stored capture) (link now dead; copy taken from the Internet Archive, 28 August 2025); United States v. Royal Business Funds Corp., 29 B.R. 777 (S.D.N.Y. 1983), A.L.T. Corp. v. SBA , 801 F.2d 1451 5th Cir. 1986, United States v. Royal Business Funds Corp. , 29 B.R. 777 S.D.N.... (original: law.justia.com · stored capture) (link now dead; copy taken from the Internet Archive, 15 July 2017). ↩
  4. Joint FTC/SBA warning letter to Taycor Financial, June 22, 2020 (signature block: "Eric S. Benderson, Associate General Counsel for Litigation, U.S. Small Business Administration"). FTC copy: 2020 06 Taycor Financial (original: ftc.gov · stored capture). ↩
  5. Joint FTC/SBA warning letter to Lendio, Inc., May 14, 2020. FTC copy: Lendio 5f9f69d0745d (original: ftc.gov · stored capture). ↩
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