It’s hard to play hardball when you’ve already admitted you did everything wrong. But you can play for time. So when Malaysia started to get a bit uppity towards the bank that allegedly helped bilk it out of $4.5 billion through the malign workings of a guy they didn’t do very a good job of vetting but made partner anyway, earning a cool $600 million for itself, Goldman walked away from the negotiating table. Given what Malaysia was asking for, it seemed like it couldn’t hurt, since you never know what time might bring.