It's one way companies cancel leases and may be the best way to break a lease depending on how it's written. Then they get evicted and the lease is cancelled.
Look at San Francisco and all the companies just walking away from buildings while stopping any payments to said leases and loans. It's not that uncommon.
What kind of damages would breaking a lease create compared to not paying rent and getting evicted after months? Why wouldn't you still be in the hook for breaking a lease?
Yeah, this really doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The way a commercial lease is written, you owe all rent for the agreed upon term, to be paid monthly. If you want to break the lease, early termination may have some slight benefit or a way to mitigate having to pay out the entire term- for example you may be able to find a new tenenat and negotiate a smaller fee for breaking the lease since the landlord will have no loss in income. If you just stiff them on the payments, they will obviously just sue you for the full amount with no way to mitigate that. Who would write a lease that let one party unilaterally out of their obligation when they break the terms of the contract?