Were you in fintech or other highly classified work? I've only heard of employers paying (former?) employees for basically a year of their salary on "garden leave", where the employee is kept on the payroll without doing any work in order to prevent them being able to bring trade secrets to a competitor
I was a data scientist at an insurance company. Was a fairly standard redundancy based payment but with a little bit extra to avoid it being a redundancy and to get a mutual non-disparagement agreement. Basically the bonus for the year, 3 months garden leave, 8 weeks redundancy pay, taxes, pension contribution, and share scheme buyout etc.
When I'd avoided redundancies at previous employer (large bank) some really great terms had been offered.
