The real criminals are the project owner. But Bounty manager also has some responsibility about it and as a bounty hunter you also have a responsibility about what you promote, but less than BM and Owners as my view.
Bounty managers are only responsible for late announcement if there are with their payment and communication with project representatives. They are the same employees like hunters, but on different conditions and tasks.
Many times I've experiences, that 4-12 week bounty ended, managers says he had not received any payment after first week and project representatives are silent or ignoring him. In such case full responsibility for hunters wasting time is on the manager.