Properly E-mailed Proposal That Never Made It To The Contracting Officer's Inbox Found Timely Submitted Under Government Control Exception

Government contractors know to follow the instructions in solicitations, particularly instructions about when and how to timely submit proposals. But, what happens if the contractor follows the solicitation's instructions to the letter and sends its proposal via e-mail to a government e-mail address but the proposal is rejected by the second in a chain of government servers before reaching the appropriate government e-mail inbox? According to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ("COFC") (and coming the opposite conclusion of the U.S. Government Accountability Office ("GAO") on the same bid protest), the Government Control exception under FAR § 52.215-1(c)(3)(ii)(A)(2) applies and the improperly rejected proposal must be considered timely.