I am not at all surprised. In many (most?) corporate environments, all your work product belongs to the corporation and management decides whether the benefits to the company outway risks. To get approval for conference talks I always had to first get approval from my direct management and then from the corporate clearance department. I worked in our analytical science division, so I also needed approval from the management of our client divisions to speak about my work on their projects. We even had editors who had to approve all abstracts, articles, and slides.