Bash: usage of `true`

In many scripts I inherited from a former employee, I keep seeing this pattern:

if (true $SOME_VAR)&>/dev/null; then
    ...
fi

or this one

(true $SOME_VAR)&>/dev/null || SOMEVAR="..."

The man page for true says it always returns true, hence I keep wondering, what is the point of these checks? In the first case the then part is always executed, in the second case the right hand part is never executed.