"What does the company have to gain by continuing to drag this out when they have nothing?"
As long as they pretend they have something, they stil have some plausible cover. As FaceBook shows, there are still people who believe they have real technology but have just been subject to unfortunate delays.
As soon as they admit they have nothing, and never have done, then the AMF and SEC investigations get joined by a number of civil suits on both sides of the border. The longer they can put that off, the better from their perspective.