At any stage in a contest, either player can choose to admit defeat and withdraw from the contest. (After all, take the example of the Bouncer not letting the PC into the club. If the PC has lost a couple of rounds and says "OK, I give up and walk away" you can't really say "Sorry, you can't leave while you've still got positive AP's"). What this does effectively is voluntarily reduce your own AP's down to 0.
Of course some times its not that easy to just give up on a contest - If you are fighting a Broo, for instance then saying "I'm not going to fight any more" may not be a particularly sound strategy, and when you've climbed half way up a sheer cliff face in the Condor Crags you may find coming down nearly as tricky as continuing to climb up. So any time a character chooses to admit defeat, the opponent may immediately choose to take a free "final action" in an attempt to drive the level of defeat down even further. The action the PC can use to defend against this may be limited by the narrative and type of contest being used. (A player who was fighting and has surrendered probably shouldn't be using a "Combat" skill to defend (although some sort of Dodge would be fine). A player who has given up climbing, however should/could still use "climb" to get down safely).
Obviously this won't necessarily apply every time. The bouncer might be quite happy to see you walk away from the club door without feeling the need to humiliate you too (well you might be lucky...)
handling situations where the opponent manages to reduce themselves to 0 or less due to a disasterous final action, or where the Player criticals and transfers in more AP's will really have to be a GM's decision based on the contest and narrative at that point.
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