Say Again?

A public agency recently received a letter from a company hired by the surety who provided the payment and performance bond for a contractor on a construction project for the agency.

Apparently, the contractor is experiencing financial difficulties, and the company put the public agency on notice to not make any further payments to the contractor without written permission.

However, their letter lost some of its impact when they closed with this statement: "Failure by [the public agency] to ignore this request may result in double liability on the part of [the public agency]."

So how does this brain twister of words actually work? Does this mean that the public agency would only have liability if they fail to ignore the request? Is this an invitation to ignore the request?