This would be a bad legal strategy. Playing this through as a lawyer:
1. You will be asked to produce it in a lawsuit
2. It will come out it does not exist but should.
3. You will be absolutely and totally excoriated in the lawsuit, in the court of public opinion, and by your regulators.
4. You will prolong the news cycle of your malicious belligerence, and it may even spike higher when it comes out the docs don't exist but should.
5. You will be forced to settle the lawsuit at very high cost, and because you were totally belligerent, you will be regulated much harder, which has a higher-than-the-lawsuit cost most likely
Meanwhile, admitting you are missing shit you should not be, because the contractors played games (or even if it is just you):
1. You will be forced to settle the lawsuit at high cost
2. You will be less excoriated because you owned up to your failure, and because you look more like a bumbling company instead of belligerent and malicious.
3. You will probably be regulated more, but probably less than you did in the first scenario because of #2
The net expected value of the first strategy is much lower than the second.
They can't prevent themselves from losing or being excoriated, they can only try to make it have less cost.