The company said the agreement would see Tillerson “sever all ties with the company to comply with conflict-of-interest requirements.” (Separately, Tillerson has committed to selling off about $55 million worth of stock in the company that he already owns outright.)

In the federal ethics filing, Tillerson vows to recuse himself for up to a year from decisions directly involving ExxonMobil or a host of organizations he has helped to lead, including the American Petroleum Institute, Center for Strategic and International Studies and Boy Scouts of America.

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“This was not a clause in his employment contract that was triggered,” Stanford law expert Michael Wara said. “It’s a special arrangement of massive economic significance to Tillerson that was given to him purely because of his move into government.”

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Wara described the arrangement between Tillerson and the ExxonMobil’s board of directors as a legally questionable “sweetheart deal.” The board discloses in its shareholder filings that executive pay arrangements, which were designed to promote loyalty and long-term planning, cannot be “accelerated for any reason other than death.”