The advent, and now prevalence, of electronic commerce has created a number of legal issues regarding contract formation, binding documents and terms of agreement. Virtually every enterprise has been affected. Public procurement is no exception.

A recent decision in the Court of Federal Claims raised an interesting question. When a solicitation calls for electronic submission of bids or proposals, at what point in time has a proposal been “received”? Is it the arrival at the government’s e-mail server or arrival in the procurement officer’s e-mail inbox? If the proposal arrived with the server on time, but was not transmitted to the designated procurement officer until after the deadline, was the proposal timely?

Other cases this week involved payment sureties’ obligations for contractor tax delinquencies and a prime contractor that knowingly awarded a subcontract to an unlicensed party. A “tax rider” on the payment bonds obligated the sureties and they were not entitled to notice that their contractor/principals faced an assessment. The subcontractor’s lack of a license left both the prime and the sub without recourse in a contract dispute.