First of all, it's not about money and previous case was solved by court and court ordered that projects to pay that penalty to finish that case.
I don't know much about the continuation of the XRP case with the SEC. But if paying a fine can solve the XRP case, why don't they do it right away?
I think they have the power for that. After all, the public want XRP and the SEC to solve the problem so not many people doubt the future of XRP. If this case drag on then there is a possibility that the exchange will suspend XRP trading and it is much worse than we imagined.
Is this still stalling for time even though it is clear with a penalty if XRP is able to pay then do it, and it seems like this problem is still happening so there is still no valid news about the SEC that has received the payment.
In fact, several exchanges have suspended XRP trading and this has resulted in the price being on the verge of some may not believe that this case is still ongoing.