RE:Beware of the plot theoryMaher,
I do not disagree with what is written below. But again, it depends a lot about what is the profile of the organization being courted. If it is a small outfit without financial/legal expertise (mom and pa, sole owner, etc.), it is possible. That is not what we are talking about here.
Bombardier is an organisation with legal and financial teams which have expertise and experience of those sorts of situations. It cannot run blind with no concerns/clue of what they are getting into.
To answer your comment about the possibility for Bombardier to produce a CS-500, I would bet my bottom dollar thay there is not a chance that Airbus did not address this issue in the JV agreement and NO, Bombardier would never produce such aircraft unless they buy back the JV.
But what we found in a number of U.S. and other companies is that there is not that type of safeguarding mechanism going on. And at times a number of companies have been hollowed out by the transfer of key technologies through alliance partners. So you can lose competitiveness at the national level if various companies and key industries are being hollowed out.