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Glossary entry

French term or phrase:

[compagnie/société] de la place

English translation:

[company from /operating in] the specified/designated insurance market

Added to glossary by Eliza Hall
Apr 20, 2019 19:48
5 yrs ago
8 viewers *
French term

[compagnie/société] de la place

French to English Bus/Financial Business/Commerce (general)
This is from a contract between two companies in French-speaking Africa. Company A is obligated to purchase liability insurance, mostly to protect Company B from any possible liability for problems caused by Company A, and Company A has to buy the insurance "auprès d'une compagnie de la place."

I am inclined to think this means a local company, in other words, that "la place" means "the location" of the contract. But could it also mean something like a high-end or well-known company? A company whose name might be seen "sur la place publique"? Or am I overthinking it? The only places I've found the term being used (société de la place) are on job boards in French-speaking Africa: "société de la place cherche ingénieur," etc. Dictionaries have been no help.
Proposed translations (English)
4 +1 [company from /operating in] the specified/designated insurance market
4 +5 local company

Discussion

Ph_B (X) Apr 29, 2019:
To Steve R, “"in the local market" would probably fit the context supplied.” Agreed. See earlier comments above (before the discussion changed direction) and François’s answer below. There’s nothing in the context that we have that suggests anything like “high-end”, ”well-known” or more formal terms like “specified” or “designated”. To paraphrase Daryo, “It's basically a question of not rushing to assume without checking that specialised terms or set phrases (e.g. locutions) can be understood simply from the meaning of parts of the term, like the presence of a definite article, in general, everyday language”.
Eliza Hall (asker) Apr 27, 2019:
With Daryo and PhB Ph_B, per your suggestion I googled "assureurs de la place." It seems clear that "la place" refers above all to a marketplace, not a physical location. The location may be specified ("la place parisienne"), or implied from context; for instance, the "la place" mentioned in the first sentence here must be the French market (not necessarily French insurers, but insurers operating in France): https://www.lesechos.fr/2008/11/assurance-dommages-de-la-ban...

But when it's implied it's often "assez flou"/pretty vague, tied to a linguistic and financial area more than to a physical place.

For example, "assureurs de la place" took me to an article about the growing insurance market in French-speaking west Africa; that "place" included several different countries, the list of which was expected to grow, as well as at least one insurance company that was actually based in France, and it included local insurance coverage as well as travel coverage for residents of said west African countries when they visited the Schengen zone. Here's a link: https://www.jeuneafrique.com/374698/economie/assurances-apri...
Ph_B (X) Apr 27, 2019:
With Daryo on this - qui l'eût cru ? :-) "why not finish the term?" Perhaps because it doesn’t need to be finished where native speakers’ eyes/ears are concerned. They’ll know instinctively that it means the place "of which we are talking" or possibly, depending on where the contract was signed, "the place where we are talking/writing right now". Look at it this way : ProZ.com blablabla, ProZ.com ceci cela, le site est… et le staff de la place a décidé que… Would you think that place means, say, another translators’ site? Wouldn’t you think immediately of ProZ.com instead? (To be honest, it would not be used like that in this context, but just to make my point). We don’t know what comes before the bit you quoted in your intro – and with all due respect, that would have made for interesting reading – but hasn’t place been described/defined/discussed in some way previously in the text, but without necessarily being "specified/designated" from a contractual point of view? Anyway, assuming it has not been (and again, it doesn't need to be for a native speaker because its meaning is implicit), try "assureurs de la place" (with brackets) in your favourite search engine, and see what you get.
Daryo Apr 27, 2019:
Just an educated guess because it was obvious to them from where they were sitting at the time of negotiating / putting the contract in writing and from their previous talks which "place" is "la place".
OR if go through all the contract you might find a direct or indirect mention of which "place" they had in mind.
Francois Boye Apr 27, 2019:
Of course, Eliza!
Eliza Hall (asker) Apr 26, 2019:
The thing I don't get... ...is if they wanted to specify a location for the market in question, why not finish the term? You always see la place parisienne, la place belge, etc. "La place" by itself can mean the stock market in general; "la place belge" = Belgian stock market; etc.

So if they wanted the other party to buy insurance from an African company, why not la place africaine or some similar term (country name, city name, region name)?
Daryo Apr 26, 2019:
the context behind this clause they want to favour / help the "local insurance market" (covering one or more African countries) so this clause is about where / on which insurance marketplace the seller must get the insurance - it doesn't say anything about the insurer being big or small, only one or a syndicate.

As a parallel, in some other contracts you might get a clause requesting the seller to use a transport company from the buyer's country.
Mpoma Apr 24, 2019:
OK OK! OK, "always" was a hostage to fortune. I just mean that I occasionally do these loss adjuster reports and the people there ... invariably (! not always?) use "compagnie" when referring to insurance cos. It's just something that struck me.
Ph_B (X) Apr 24, 2019:
I've said what I had to say about this question (esp. that de la place referred to "local market" in my first comment, not to mention that this discussion was initially about "local" vs. "high-end/well-known") and that I had nothing useful to add to this conversation. However, that was before Mpoma's "people always talk of "compagnie", not "société" in the insurance field". Well, if that's the case, someone should tell French ins cos that they've got it wrong. The best way to do this is probably to notify them through their own Fédération Française des Sociétés d'Assurance which now shares its website with GMA (French mutual ins cos).
Mpoma Apr 24, 2019:
"Place" only means "location" in Canadian French I've taken a look at the discussion here and it's interesting... but when the questioner put in other words, that "la place" means "the location" of the contract, I have to raise the red faux ami flag.

Only one form of French allows "place" to mean "endroit", Canadian French (I've searched for proof of this but couldn't find it). This is presumaby an anglicism (although it's just possible that it comes from an archaic form of French).

No other form of French ever allows this idea.

You can talk about "place" in a competition, or a table setting. "Place" can also mean "Square" (Place de la Concorde). But trying to squeeze an idea of "localness" out of the expression "de la place" is just plain wrong, and an anglicism, IMHO. "Place" simply means "market" in such expressions, as Daryo says, with no overtones of "localness" whatsoever.
Eliza Hall (asker) Apr 23, 2019:
Larousse Business Dictionnaire/Dictionary This dictionary--my copy of which is a 1990s edition--doesn't talk about insurance in the "place" entry, but it does make clear that like Daryo says, it means a market, not a location:

"la place boursière" or "la place financière" = the stock market or stock exchange. And in the example sentence, taken from a French economics periodical, "la place belge" all by itself -- WITHOUT the words boursière or financière -- is translated as "the Belgian stock market." And all the examples are either entire countries (la place belge) or major world financial centers (London, Paris etc.).

So I think this means either the world insurance market (as opposed to some mom-and-pop rinky-dink insurance company), or the stock market (donc une compagnie d'assurance côtée en bourse). Either way, "major" works.

I've sent the translation off, using "major," with a comment for the customer that the meaning is ambiguous and could potentially also mean "local" -- which one do they actually mean? I'll let you know.
Daryo Apr 23, 2019:
reading further / the complete sentence: 1. Ville, localité où s’effectuent (ou peuvent s’effectuer) des opérations boursières, commerciales ou bancaires. La place de Londres, de Paris; place commerciale, internationale; place de crédit.

With truncated quotes you could "prove" empty is full, left is right ...
Ph_B (X) Apr 23, 2019:
Daryo, Please go back to your own reference - the source of which was mentioned in my first post:place..., place..., place..., > localité..., localité..., zone géographique..., all of which has already been discussed in my earlier notes. This is going in circles now. Sorry, I have to end my participation in this discussion.
Daryo Apr 23, 2019:
Beyond what you had to work on so far what makes more real life sense to you:

A forcing a party to get insurance from "THE (a specified one) insurance marketplace / exchange / etc ... " chosen/imposed by the other party

or

B forcing a party to get insurance from some undefined "company" that is "very precisely" defined as "local"?

never mind the extensive entry "B" regarding "la place" as a place and mechanism for trading to be found in "le Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales (CNRTL)"!

I would tend to put some trust in the CNRS ... more than is hasty assumptions based on the general / conversational meanings of words.

As far as I can see turning "[compagnie/société] de la place" into some "local company" is akin to assuming that "consideration" in a contract in UK/US means "being considerate to the other party".
Ph_B (X) Apr 23, 2019:
Daryo, "How many time did you get to translate a contract where it's imposed on one of the parties where to buy insurance?" Many times, because most of the contracts I translate don't actually come from the EU (Hint: how many EU countries have English as their official, or even administrative, language?). Nor is it what my note was about.
Daryo Apr 23, 2019:
@ Ph_B How many time did you get to translate a contract where it's imposed on one of the parties where to buy insurance? Certainly not many in France, (or UK, or the other usual suspects ...) with all the EU anti-monopoly competition rules ... So unsurprisingly, you "can’t remember having seen the words "market" or "marketplace" used in the E>F insurance contracts".
Ph_B (X) Apr 23, 2019:
One last thing: I can’t remember having seen the words "market" or "marketplace" used in the E>F insurance contracts I’ve translated. That would be OK in general texts about insurance, but would they be fit for a contract? [EDIT] (Further to Daryo's note below) This was not a rhetorical question but one about style and terminology in contracts; it would be interesting to read an answer from Eliza as a lawyer.
Ph_B (X) Apr 23, 2019:
Obviously, de la place cannot be isolated from its context, which is insurance (source text). So yes, it is an insurance market(place). But that phrase can be applied to just any profession you can think of, even though I agree it's more usual in texts dealing with finance, e.g. L’enquête de Biocom montre le dynamisme de la place boursière parisienne(http://biopharmanalyses.fr/paris-premiere-place-boursiere-eu... this phrase stresses above all is "the place" where this is taking place (see dico refs. above). I too suggested "market" in my first comment above and I also mentioned place de marché, but I stressed that the key thing here is that it is "local". It's not about what they do (marché could have been used), it's about where they do it. That's what de la place means and not any insurance or other vague "market" as such, unless you say it's local.<p>So, une compagnie de la place = a local (insurance) company<p>I would caution against reading too much into this. We're translating here, not interpreting/explaining.
Eliza Hall (asker) Apr 22, 2019:
@ Daryo - insurance sources suggest you're right I'm inclined to agree with you that la place means the insurance marketplace. If you google the following exactly as shown, you get pertinent links:

"de la place" "marché de l’assurance"

In a French Senate discussion on how to prevent bankruptcies of insurance companies: "Il a préconisé la création d'un mécanisme de garantie commun à tous les assureurs de la place, qu'ils soient sociétés anonymes ou mutuelles." https://www.senat.fr/rap/r98-045/r98-045_mono.html

On an insurance blog, re Amazon recruiting insurance professionals in London to break into the EU insurance market: "Pour les acteurs de la place, la question se pose." https://www.insurancespeaker-wavestone.com/2018/01/amazon-su...

A summary of the insurance market: "Les places émergentes (Dubaï, Singapour, Brésil) prennent de l’ampleur mais rayonnent peu au-delà de leur zone régionale. La surcapacité et la diversité des offres de la place de Paris... [et] de Londres répondent largement aux besoins du marché." (First link that comes up; a PDF, can't link directly to it; entitled "Les tendances du marché IARDT" by WillisTowersWatson.com).
Daryo Apr 21, 2019:
There was already a question about "la place" in some other trading, not insurances.

After much meandering if boiled down to be "the place of trading" i.e. "the market" in said goods - the market as "meeting point for sellers and buyers" i.e. functioning as "a market" but without necessarily referring to any particular physical location! Same as nowadays you can have a "meeting" without even all being in the same physical location.
Ph_B (X) Apr 21, 2019:
local, major, high-end, well-known Purely from a translation point of view, the last three sound like overtranslation to me. They may well be implied (context will tell you if that's the case and who would go to an ins co that they don't know and trust anyway?) but that's not what de la place means, strictly speaking. See previous note. Also, it's worth bearing in mind that African nations have been trying to build a local, e.g. continent-wide, insurance market for years (it's proving difficult because of lack of funds and other reasons too, but that's beside the point) and mentioning de la place is perhaps a way of taking this into account. On the other hand, ATILF and R&C to some extent do refer to a particular town/city and you can hardly get more local than that. "Local" - whatever the intended scope (city/State-wide, EU-type regional union, continent-wide?) sounds safe, unless someone comes up with something more idiomatic.
Eliza Hall (asker) Apr 20, 2019:
Merci Ph-B That's great. I had a vague sense of stock markets from the term, but couldn't think why, so thanks for the reference.

Would you agree that the term "de la place" might best be translated here as "major" (as in, you must obtain insurance from a major company)? We use the same word in the term "a major city" (i.e. London, New York, Los Angeles, Paris, etc.). "A major movie studio" = Warner Brothers, Gaumont, etc. "A major software company" = Microsoft, Adobe, etc.

"De la place" seems imprecise to me, one of those things whose exact parameters you can't define, but "you know it when you see it," as we say in English. Same goes for "major" in this context, and certainly any insurance company that people would generally agree was "major" would have an office in one or more "villes où s'effectuent... des opérations boursières," etc.
Ph_B (X) Apr 20, 2019:
local market, more than high-end B. FIN., COMM.
1. Ville, localité où s'effectuent (ou peuvent s'effectuer) des opérations boursières, commerciales ou bancaires. La place de Londres, de Paris; place commerciale, internationale; place de crédit. Négocier un billet sur la place. Être connu, avoir du crédit sur la place de Paris(http://stella.atilf.fr/Dendien/scripts/tlfiv5/visusel.exe?45... Since insurance is mentioned, it might be of interest to note that Lloyd's insurance market is sometimes described as place de marché de l'assurance in French. See also R&C: vous ne trouverez pas moins cher sur la place de Paris="you won't find cheaper on the Paris market" - dans toutes les places financières du monde = "in all the money markets of the world".

Proposed translations

+1
1 day 38 mins
Selected

[company from /operating in] the specified/designated insurance market

The point is in "market" - it's not simply the geographical location, it's the fact that that location is a meeting point for trading (here in insurances) that make it "une/la place".

The use of the definite article "LA place" implies that a specific insurance market is referred to.

This contract says: Insurance must be bought from "THE insurance market" (i.e. from a company operating on / being part of THE insurance market". Question is which one? Most likely the insurance market on the buyer's territory - more convenient for the buyer, and if the buyer is is position to impose this insurance, they will also impose "la place" convenient for them. Anyway, there must be clues elsewhere in the contract.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 day 59 mins (2019-04-21 20:48:12 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

... that makes it "une/la place".

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 2 days 16 hrs (2019-04-23 12:01:36 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

PLACE, subst. fém.

A. .....

B. − FIN., COMM.

1. Ville, localité où s’effectuent (ou peuvent s’effectuer) des opérations boursières, commerciales ou bancaires. La place de Londres, de Paris; place commerciale, internationale; place de crédit.

Négocier un billet sur la place. Être connu, avoir du crédit sur la place de Paris (Ac.).
L’État sera à cet égard à la discrétion de la caisse d’escompte, dont les administrateurs sauront bien gouverner le prix de l’argent sur la place (Le Moniteur, t.2, 1789, p.350).

L’on peut acquérir les billets sur la place, moyennant tant pour cent (Balzac,E. Grandet, 1834, p.136):

8. … les «réseaux» de paiements en direction ou en provenance d’autres centres (…) ou d’où émanent et auxquels vont des flux monétaires. Les plus significatifs de ces «centres» sont des ensembles complexes d’organismes monétaires et financiers: les places [it. ds le texte]. Perroux,Écon. XXes., 1964, p.134.

♦ Faire la place, loc. verb., vieilli. Avoir pour métier de placer, d’écouler de la marchandise par démarchage.
S’il savait faire quelque chose, un étalage, une addition, la place, la vente (…) pincer le tissu, tenir les livres, le carnet, la caisse! (Vallès,Réfract., 1865, p.17).

♦ Place bancable (comm.). V. bancable B.

♦ Place boursière (fin.). ,,Localité où se tient un marché financier; p.ext. synon. de Bourse« (Gestion fin. 1982).

♦ Place cambiste (fin.). Localité ,,où l’on traite des opérations de change« (Banque 1963).

♦ Place financière. ,,Au plan national, on appelle place une zone géographique dans laquelle les établissements financiers interviennent par compensation pour régler leurs échanges sous le contrôle de la Banque de France. Au plan international, les grandes places financières sont les Bourses des valeurs mobilières« (ceneco Entr. 1980).
2. P. méton. ,,Corps des négociants, des banquiers d’une ville; commerce général de cette ville« (Barr. 1974).

C. ....


https://www.lalanguefrancaise.com/dictionnaire/definition-su...

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 2 days 16 hrs (2019-04-23 12:33:28 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

in fact the REAL source is

http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/place

@ "lalanguefrancaise.com" they just copy-pasted the whole entry for "la place" from "cnrtl.fr"

Créé en 2005 par le CNRS, le Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales (CNRTL) fédère au sein d’un portail unique, un ensemble de ressources linguistiques informatisées et d’outils de traitement de la langue.
Le CNRTL intègre le recensement, la documentation (métadonnées), la normalisation, l’archivage, l’enrichissement et la diffusion des ressources.
La pérennité du service et des données est garantie par l’adossement à l’UMR ATILF (CNRS – Nancy Université), le soutien du CNRS ainsi que son intégration dans le projet d’équipement d'excellence ORTOLANG.
Peer comment(s):
neutral AllegroTrans : Any refs to back this up?
4 hrs
WHERE would you go to get an "insurance (contract)" for your company? Personally, I would try my luck on a "market for insurance contracts" - not convinced that some generic "local company" would be a better bet ...
neutral Ph_B (X) : "specified/designated market" in the source text? Overtranslation?/"Indications to the contrary"? Yes - it's a set phrase ("locution"). Basic French.
1 day 11 hrs
la place vs. une place? Unless I started forgetting basics of French grammar, if they used "la" it means they are referring to some specific preferred "place of trading" that must have been defined previously. Any indications to the contrary?
agree Mpoma : Yes, definitely means "market". "place" can mean "place" (EN), but never in the geographical sense (exception: Canadian French). Insurance terms can be slightly "specialist", e.g. people always talk of "compagnie", not "société", in the insurance field.
2 days 16 hrs
Thanks!
disagree GILLES MEUNIER : vous copiez-collez des pages sur Google mais c'est hors contexte. C'est une méthode assez enfantine....
3 days 14 hrs
Commentaire enfantin ...
agree Steve Robbie : "in the local market" would probably fit the context supplied, but thank you for addressing the subtlety of the issue.
4 days
It's basically a question of not rushing to assume without any checking that specialised terms can be understood simply from the meaning of parts of the term in the general everyday language. Long list of potential traps of that kind. Thanks!
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Although I'm not using this translation's wording, I think this answer gets closest to the meaning: "la place" is first and foremost a marketplace, not a physical location. As in la place financière, la place bancaire, etc. "
+5
3 hrs

local company

de la place = from where you are located
Peer comment(s):
agree Ph_B (X) : That's what it means.[Post-grading edit] There might be a better way of saying it ("local insurance co/market"?] but yes, that's what it means basically.
7 hrs
Thanks!
agree Adrian MM.
9 hrs
disagree Daryo : oversimplified to the point of completely missing the point.
21 hrs
agree Zeineb Nalouti : c'est exactement ça.
1 day 11 hrs
Thanks!
agree AllegroTrans
1 day 14 hrs
Thanks!
agree Gareth Callagy
2 days 16 hrs
Thanks!
agree Yolanda Broad
3 days 17 mins
Thanks!
neutral Mpoma : "place" = "market"... it can mean "place" but (IMHO) never in the sense of "endroit". ALTHOUGH... possibly (and only) in Canadian French, as I recall vaguely: an anglicism, clearly. But this is not Canadian French, since it involves African companies.
3 days 13 hrs
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