Government Receives Proposals When They Hit the Server

In Insight Sys. Corp. v. U.S. (May 6, 2013), Judge Allegra of the CFC concluded that the FAR's "Government Control" exception to the "Late Is Late" doctrine can apply to electronic mail as well as paper submissions, even though the FAR does not specifically address electronic submissions. When an e-mail is received by an initial government server before the submission deadline, that e-mail is considered timely "received," even when a malfunction of the internal e-mail delivery system causes the e-mail not to be delivered to the Contracting Officer until after the deadline.