No matter how generous a severance package seems, employees should never accept it without extremely careful consideration.

After all, severance agreements are primarily designed to let the employer off the hook from future lawsuits—and that is not always in the best interest of the employee.

Why Do Employers Offer Severance Agreements?

Severance agreements are voluntary contracts that offer special compensation and/or benefits to an employee who has been fired or laid off.

Employment contracts provide crucial structure for businesses and their employees. Before accepting an employment agreement, it’s important for employees to understand their rights. It is equally important for businesses to be well-versed in current employment legislation, in order to avoid costly and stressful legal disputes down the line.

Here is an overview of three crucial employment laws that every individual and business should understand.

Tax law rarely makes major headlines, but the IRS and the Treasury Department’s April 2016 proposed tax regulations were a fascinating exception. The anti-trust regulations had a timely impact on Pfizer, and resulted in the dissolution of what was almost one of the most significant mergers in the business world.

Although the investment fraudsters who make headlines tend to be individuals, corporations can also be guilty of major fraud schemes. The source of corporate investment fraud is often a deliberate lack of transparency that leads investors to suffer losses or unknowingly act against their own best interests.

Though most Americans hope to generate sufficient income from their careers, investments play a major role in how we plan for the future. Whether it’s through a company-sponsored 401K or an independent investment portfolio, millions of Americans put their trust in financial experts in order to make the safest and most advantageous decisions with their savings.

Whenever a Ponzi scheme makes headlines, it’s not uncommon for those unaffected by the scandal to wonder: How could the investors not have known? How could the broker have gotten away with such a massive fraud scheme for so long?