It's not that they had an option to collect that $800k in some way - I'd presume that their share in the company was objectively worth much less after all these

It's not that they had an option to collect that $800k in some way - I'd presume that their share in the company was objectively worth much less after all these years, and the only difference that some hardball squeezing might make would be that they get a chance to write off, say, just $500k instead of $800k but more likely just block the deal so that nobody gets anything.