Welcome to Jenner & Block’s Government Contracts Legal Round‑Up, a biweekly update on important government contracts developments. This update offers brief summaries of key developments for government contracts legal, compliance, contracting, and business executives. Please contact any of the professionals at the bottom of the update for further information on any of these topics.

The Supreme Court declined to take on cases that would have resolved a frequent question about the application of FRCP 9(b) to pleading False Claims Act cases. Many had hoped that the Supreme Court would have resolved the matter of how detailed relators’ evidence needed to be when bringing FCA cases, but the Supreme Court once again declined to take up the issue.

• Court of Federal Claims Judge Schwartz found that an agency improperly rejected a proposal under the “late is late” rule.
• The government rejected eSimplicity’s proposal as late, but the real issue was a file size restriction to the agency’s email system. eSimplicity’s proposal submission arrived at the agency’s email system before the deadline, but did not make it through to the contracting office.
• Rather than accepting the agency’s reason, eSimplicity successfully characterized the issue as one of unstated evaluation criteria.
• Judge Schwartz agreed. While agencies often specify file size limits, the solicitation here did not, nor did it contain any other provision that could reasonably encompass such a restriction.
• By rejecting...

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