As far as I know, Bioware did this to Interplay during the developpement of NeverWinter Nights without being harmed, Valve did this recently to VUGames and Epic Game did this to Atari since their next Unreal will be edited by Midway.
So if the developper is big enough, it is totally possible to say f*ck to your editor and go elsewhere.
Anyway, what does "MCA" mean ?