In my opinion, the fact the NR came out on June 5th advising us of the extended timeframe, is to address the response due on June 4th, which is 120 days from Feb. 2013. That IMO proves that Teck accepted Feb. 4th to be a legal date and thus, approved the NR sent out by CUU. Both CUU and Teck responded to a deadline per the contract and that speaks volumes. Both companies by sending out the NR acknowledged and respected the due date of June 4, 2013.

Difference between Negotiations v. Discussion

By Eric Ottinger on Tuesday, January 28, 2003 - 12:51 pm:

Rob,

The answer to your second question is "No."

Discussions are a subset of negotiations. In a competitive acquisition "negotiations" are "discussions." In noncompetitive acquisitions, "negotiations" are "negotiations."

Discussions are constrained by certain rules which are required to assure discussions with one offeror are not conducted in a way that is unfair to other offerors. For instance, if one offeror has a bright idea, I can't "tranfuse" the bright idea to other offerors.

Eric

... and a lot more on link.

http://www.wifcon.com/arc/forum74.htm