When the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reached a $6 million settlement with Anheuser-Busch InBev last year, the accusations went beyond the bribes allegedly paid to Indian government officials. Securities enforcers accused the beverage giant of using a severance agreement to silence an employee who’d stopped communicating with the agency out of fear he would be forced to pay $250,000 for violating the contract’s nondisclosure terms.

The settlement came at the end of a two-month period in which the SEC reached a string of enforcement actions over severance agreements. The agency said then that it hoped to send a message about the consequences of stifling would-be whistleblowers.