The Emailed Proposal Problem

In a source selection conducted pursuant to FAR Part 15 and 52.215-1, the contracting officer authorized the submission of proposals by hardcopy or email and instructed offerors to submit emailed proposals to the contracting officer's email address and hard copy proposals to the contracting officer's street address at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Offerors were instructed to send an email proposal or a hard copy proposal, but not both. All proposals had to be received at the specified location no later than January 21 at 3:00 p.m. Acme Corp. sent its proposal to the contracting officer by email on January 21 at 2:55 p.m. The proposal arrived in the contracting officer's email inbox at 3:01 p.m. All other proposals were received before 3:00 p.m. On January 22, Acme gave the contracting officer documentary evidence that it had commenced transmission of its email at 2:55 p.m., that the government's first server was identified and located at 2:58:30 p.m., and that receipt of the transmission at the first server was confirmed at 2:58:31 p.m. The government information technology office produced documentation confirming that the proposal was received at the government's server at 2:58:31 p.m. and was delivered to the contracting officer's email inbox at 3:01:00 p.m.

Questions: Based on FAR 52.215-1: 1. Is Acme's proposal late? Yes or No? 2. If Acme's proposal is late, may the contracting officer consider it? Yes or No?