Yes, but is “the company” at all allowed to link their proprietary code with the GPL’ed code, if they do not distribute it; even if they do not distribute it?
As I understand it, the company must GPL it’s own code base, but they are then not required to give the their code base to the public. And the company can prohibit it’s employees from giving out the code base to the public, since it has not “distributed” the code to the employees.