But this is very different from standard collaborative arrangements. It’s a British programme which the French are paying to join (1/3rd of what’s already been spent, in staged payments). Leadership will remain with the UK. There’s no workshare argument possible, because there is no workshare agreement. We build ours, they build theirs. They get the right to use the design, & will modify it to suit themselves. That’s the deal, & both sides seem happy with it.
AFAIK, if the French change their minds, they can pull out at any time. We keep their money, they keep a copy of everything done up to that point – because they’ll have paid for it.
Only scope for a big argument, as far as I can see, is if we change our requirements so that they become incompatible with theirs, & I presume we’ll have made promises about that. If they change their requirements so they’re no longer compatible with ours, well, that’s their problem. They can pull out, as above.
AFAIK the two programmes are independent. French are not joining the british programme, they have their own programme leaded by DCN and Thales.There is a MoU at a political level, which allows french programme to use the CVF design made by Thales. There is a true willingness to stay as much as possible compatible with CVF, but the french navy specifications are pretty differents from the british ones (Rafale, E2C, combat system etc.).
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