USCIS literally dictates how company uses H1B. OPT and H1B have to submit a document, signed by manager, explain their responsibility.

I'm pretty sure if that says "im doing nothing. I just get paid". They will be in trouble.

This case is uncharted because nobody knows how long on the payroll is wrong. We can all agree 2y is wrong. But 3 months, 4 months, 3 months 2 days? Nobody knows.

I gave you a few other examples where the lengths of periods are also arbitrary. One of them is even around immigration.