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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 | 8 min read | 11.10.26

EU Simplifies Rules on Defense Procurement and Transfers of Defense-Related Products

The European Union has enacted its first major reform of the 2009 directives on defense procurement and intra-EU transfers of defense-related products. The amending directive, which has been adopted as part of the Defense Readiness Omnibus legislative package (also known as “Omnibus V”), aims to simplify and accelerate procedures both for buying defense- and security-related goods, and for transferring such goods between EU Member States.  ...