Kritiko There are penalties, but Webnovel doesn't pursue them, since it's not worth the effort suing them for just a few hundred dollars?
It's simply freelance work for most translators. This is common in the freelance industry, where clients are left helpless when the work that was promised was not done. Of course, there's no money lost, but time lost on the client's (Webnovel) side and a loss of reputation for the freelancer (the translator). But in this case, the translator is unlikely to continue anyway.
It is a problem with having spent SS, which is why Webnovel still will try to resume books, but resuming them is difficult. Most translators don't see this as a career, so they don't really need to 'improve' by picking up the works of another translator when they can simply start a new book afresh.
That's what they do with novels with picked up translators. See Swallowed Star. The first few hundred chapters were done by Translation Nations, while the latter chapters are done by Nyoi-boi Studios. The point about picking up another translation is the consistency of terms, which Nyoi-boi got flamed for not being consistent with the other translator's terms. It is after all a novel. If it's just a independent article, anyone can pick up dropped translations.