Immediately after joining "Nortraship" Næss was thrown into negotiating a new tonnage agreement with his British and US counterparts, Bill Weston from the Ministry of War Transport and David Scoll from the War Shipping Administration. The negotiations took months and were hard bargaining. The agreement signed on New Year's Eve 1942 and thus named the Hogmanay agreement. The agreement was to last for the rest of the war and Næss played the inexperienced US negotiator against the British, thus landing as many benefits as he could for the Norwegians.