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Agency's "Mail Storm" Excuses Late Proposal

Client Alert | 1 min read | 03.31.11

Moving beyond faxes into the computer age, the Court of Federal Claims in Watterson Constr. Co. v. U.S. (Mar. 29, 2011) found that a contractor's late proposal should be excused when the delay was caused solely by a "mail storm" at the agency which overloaded and slowed down its servers. Judge Braden found that the late proposal, received by the contracting officer 4 minutes after the deadline, is excused because the proposal was on time as it had been received by the agency's servers timely; even if it had been late, the FAR's "government control" exception applied; and, in any event, the "mail storm" was an "emergency or unanticipated event" which entitled the contractor to a 1-day extension under the FAR.

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Client Alert | 10 min read | 04.22.26

The EU Industrial Accelerator Act Proposal’s Significance for the Automotive Industry

On March 4, 2026, the European Commission proposed the Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA), a draft regulation that aims to reverse the decline of the EU’s manufacturing sector while supporting the adoption of cleaner technologies. This client alert is the third in a three-part series dedicated to the IAA. In our first alert, we provided an overview of the draft regulation. In a second alert, we took a closer look at the new foreign direct investment (FDI) review framework that the IAA would establish for certain strategic sectors. In this third and final instalment of the series, we focus on the implications of the proposal for the automotive industry....