1. Free lunch may not be free but while it may cost $X for the company to offer that lunch and while they may deduct that $X from my salary, the value of that lunch to me is not $X but, say, 10 x $X because it saves me time going to and searching for places to eat, waiting in line, waiting for meal to be prepared, paying more per meal, including the tip...etc

2. Sure, they can. For example, Google will hire "Totally Unrelated To Google, Catering Inc".

1. By taking a lower salary in exchange for lunches, you indirectly save on food expenses during the day. Additionally, you could save large amounts of money on taxes.

2. They could and probably do already, however that doesn't get citizens into local restaurants, which is what I'm assuming is this law's goal.

> pay a third party to serve lunches for their employees in a company canteen

That's what happens today that they want to ban.