As I read the piece, it was a three year contract which was included in the old HR system, but not ported to the new one. If that's true, it was certainly breach of contract - "we forgot to upload the paperwork" doesn't get you out of honoring it.

If that was the case they would have not said "renew." "Renew" has special meaning in contracts.

With contract staff, the duration is usually a not to exceed. Also, it’s typically a contract to deliver a person with specific skill, not a specific person.

There are exceptions, but they are pretty rare in tech.

It's not weird - the vast majority of long term contracts I've seen (for services my company provides) are several years long but requires the other party to renew the contract at periodic intervals.

So the contract was negotiated at a specific price point for (say) three years but every X months the other party can opt out by not renewing. They only commit for a certain term.

Perhaps he should've written it as an "adding" instead of "renewing" since it's an existing contract with the merged company that needed to be properly added to the take over company.

Probably informally thought of as a three year contact but legally written as a shorter one for tax etc. purposes.