B D Finch (asker) Oct 27, 2018:

@All I'm closing this question. The translation decided on is "participating company".

tanglsus Oct 27, 2018:

teaming companies, without specifying whether it is prime or sub contract companies, are just companies with teaming agreement or arrangement in vying for a particular contract project. It would be wrong to call it sub or prime companies nor do I think you should call it participant company.

B D Finch (asker) Oct 25, 2018:

Société collaboratrice @Daryo
I think this term has been put there to allow the author to call bears "plantigrades". I didn't say that '"société collaboratrice" is partly owned by the other "société collaboratrice"', on the contrary, I thought I should avoid using any term that implied that it was.

@Charles
"Collaboratrice" is used in exactly the same way in French as you describe the Spanish equivalent term being used. It simply means working together and is often used euphemistically/manipulatively to mean employees.

@Germaine
Thanks, yes that is a very good point, so I am tempted to go through my document translating it as "Mickey Mouse" :) As the term "société collaboratrice" is defined in this sentence as meaning "subcontractor", I probably shouldn't be worrying too much about how I translate it, so long as I avoid implying any sort of ownership relationship between the contractor and their subcontractor.

I am now thinking of using the term "participant company". I don't want to use "partner" because that does carry other meanings and I was actually involved, many years ago, in piloting a new partnership form of construction contract for the JCT.

Germaine Oct 25, 2018:

Évidemment, comme d’habitude, pouvoir lire le début de la phrase permettrait de vérifier ce qui conviendrait le mieux. Je dis ça parce que "LE titulaire ou LA société collaboratrice" (un singulier) pour définir une expression qui contient le pluriel "...leurs sous-traitants" est incohérent. On s’attendrait plutôt à lire "les titulaires ou les sociétés collaboratrices". (En fait, ...hereinafter called the "contractors" and "subscontractors" (la position des guillemets est importante puisqu’ils contiennent l’expression qui sera répétée.)

Germaine Oct 25, 2018:

Se casser la tête pour rien... This is a contractual "definition", meaning you have latitude to use whatever you see fit or makes sense - EVEN "subcontractors" - since the definition is there to specify that the term that you will be using is to be construed as meaning "their subcontractors" [subcontractors of whoever is "their" referring to]: ...their subcontractors, hereinafter [called/referred to as] the "contractor / successful bidder / successful tenderer" or "subcontractors / collaborating subcontractors / subcontracting companies".... The only rule is to always use the term defined from that point on.

Charles Davis Oct 25, 2018:

I am not so sure that "collaboratrice" implies equal status or that there is any contradiction with the position of a subcontractor. I can say for certain that in Spanish, the equivalent term, "colaborador(a)", can be applied to a subordinate; in fact companies regularly refer to their employees (euphemistically) as "colaboradores". I'm not sure whether something similar happens in French, but I wouldn't be surprised.

At any rate, "partner company" seems to me a reasonable solution. "Partner" is a word that doesn't inherently imply a particular contractual relationship; it simply means they're working together.

Daryo Oct 25, 2018:

"société collaboratrice" is not the legal status of this company but their role / function in some project. "cooperating society"? "partner society"?

the fact that this "société collaboratrice" is partly owned by the other "société collaboratrice" is here a red herring, these companies are "collaboratrices" because they do something together, whether they are legally totally separate companies or not has no influence on the meaning of "collaboratrice".

Also, can you give the whole sentence, as I have the nagging feeling that "collaboratrice" is not used as some kind of synonym for "subcontractor"; without any context, I would see "une société collaboratrice" as more or less the equal with the other company that refers to it as "... collaboratrice", which is hardly the position of a "subcontractor". The explanation / initial reference must be somewhere before the quoted fragment of the sentence ...