A lineup of major law firms including Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer are advising on the €6 billion sale of transport giant Bombardier's rail operations. 

Alstom, the Paris-based maker of the TGV bullet trains, is set to take on the arm. The cash-and-stock purchase is subject to antitrust approval by European regulators; the EU's competition directorate scuttled a proposed rail merger between Alstom and Siemens of Germany in 2019. 

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton is advising Alstom, a longtime client, with a team led by partners Pierre-Yves Chabert in Paris on corporate and mergers and acquisitions, Anne-Sophie Coustel in Paris on tax, and Antoine Winckler in Brussels on antitrust.

Norton Rose Fulbright is advising Bombardier as its lead legal adviser. Jones Day is advising the company on antitrust matters outside of Canada and on French corporate matters. The antitrust team, out of Brussels, is led by Bernard Amory, head of the firm's competition practice, and includes partners Charles de Navacelle and Serge Clerckx. The French corporate team, out of Paris, is led by partners Florent Bouyer and Sophie Hagège.

Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson is advising Citi, Bombardier's financial adviser on the deal, with Philip Richter in New York, co-head of the firm's M&A practice, leading the deal team.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and the Canadian firm McCarthy Tétrault are advising the Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec, a pension fund that is a major shareholder in Bombardier Transport and will become the largest single shareholder in Alstom, with 18%, if the deal concludes.

The Freshfields team is led by corporate partners Yann Gozal and Florent Mazeron in Paris, regulatory partner Rafique Bachour in Brussels, labor partners Christel Cacioppo and Gwen Senlanne in Paris, and tax partner Vincent Daniel-Mayeur in Paris.

Freshfields recently advised Airbus on its purchase of Bombardier's shares in the A220 program, announced earlier this month.