In the USA, service contracts between the shippers and carriers must be filed with the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC). Although the contracts themselves are confidential, the FMC provides information on the amount of contract filings as well as the number of amendments. Because of the contract negotiation cycle present in the US, we see a peak in the contract filings in April-May every year. This changed from late 2020, with a spike in contract filings and a decrease in the number of amendments. To get a better overview of these filings, figure 1 shows how big of the annual original filings are made in each calendar month, comparing the pre-pandemic baseline in 2017-2019 to the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021. (....)