Typically these UMRP agreements are void once a product becomes discontinued. At that point it can be put on genuine clearance. I have to deal with that with several vendors at my business; none of them give a rat’s ass about the price once they’re no longer listing a product themselves.

It’s more likely a combination of the two in this case; some C-suite asshole somewhere is hyperventilating about how much they’ve “invested” in stock in this product and sees clearancing it as a “loss” rather than what it is, which is unloading dead stock that they’ve already paid for at a value that is still at least greater than nothing and making room for inventory they’ll hopefully have better luck with next time. I imagine subtracting the 4 cents from the price is automatic, and is the tell their system adds to the price of any clearance item.

I presume for similar reasons, one of my local Walmarts still had up until very recently a back aisle endcap full of “clearance” electronics goods which included some 32 and 64 megabyte USB 1 flash drives for, I believe, a whole three cents less than MSRP, 30 or 40 bucks each. So no wonder they’re still there.