I expect some civil servant has attempted to dig their heels in over a payment dispute - something they are quite entitled to do, all things being equal.

Unfortunatley, all things are not equal and no one may prevent those particular wheels from turning by throwing a spanner in the works....no matter how righteous that particular spanner may be.

Any escalation of such a dispute would result in mutually assured destruction and your government doesn't want that.

That would probably be in breach of their existing contracts. Remember that it was just a ban on IBM bidding on new contracts.

Putting pressure on the people doing the investigation like this might be reason for further sanctions.