Publications - conventions?

A

Hi all,
I have a rather random question! I submitted an article to a journal approx ten weeks ago. The review process should take around 8 weeks for this journal but with Christmas I guess things got a little delayed. From my submission to three days ago I hadn't heard anything. At the weekend I received an email saying that before they could proceed further I needed to confirm my paper was not being published elsewhere or was not part of another larger work in publication. I know this is all part of the normal rules and so forth, but my question is why ask now? Does it mean my paper might have a chance (ha ha!) or maybe they just forgot to do it at the time of submission? Or am I reading into it too much? I don't want to get my hopes up but obviously acceptance would be very good!
Thanks.

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