I'm certain that I heard a story once of an almost identical situation on the Brent offshore contract, years ago. North Scottish were awarded the contracted with AS365's, but had been unable to get all the crews to the required levels of experience and currency to meet Shell's demanding requirements for the contract. At the last minute, Shell approached Bristow with a request to extend the contract on an interim basis until North Scottish could fulfill the contractual requirements. Bristow responded that they certainly could, the instant that Shell signed a new multi-year year contract, or the machines would be leaving at midnight on the day of contract termination and be re-assigned to other contracts and be unavailable.
The contract was signed and continued for a good number of years and I believe that North Scottish was in some manner compensated for the investment they had made.
Of course, this may just be a good bar version of the actual events? I'm sure someone will know that real version.