snarfy here is correct, I saw some of the same shenanigans. Consider that there are a lot of really smart people in the company and coming up with a 'perfectly legal' way of accomplishing their goal (which is to have the best people working for them at the least cost[1]) is not a particularly hard problem.

And while it can be hard sometimes to think of your company as a machine which is optimizing its economic output, sometimes at your personal expense, you always have a choice of whether or not you want to participate. And sometimes when things get close to going all pear shaped they respond in economically attractive ways (like giving everyone a 10% pay raise).

[1] Cost is not simply dollars here, its impact on the organization.