société champignon

15:35 Apr 1, 2015 

Intriguing question. I've seen the term used to describe Amstrad in the PC market, way back when, so it's not necessarily recent. I've seen it used to describe solar panel firms after feed-in tariffs started (some of which are no doubt shady). There is the use by the pizza guy someone linked to, who wanted to have a "mushroom company".

I'm not gonna lie; I was initially toying with the "umbrella" connection in terms of shape - oodles of subsidiaries also seemed a factor in many, many cases. But ultimately, I am left to conclude that the "overnight (success)" factor is the only common factor in every reference (and that acquisitions are sometimes a factor in that success).

Note - not necessarily that the company was new (see Amstrad) but that when success came, it came quickly and big time.

08:53 Mar 30, 2015 

The sentence ".....cette société champignon a proposé des produits de (company xxx) à des prix étonnants..." is the only occurrence of the phrase in my entire 28 page document.
Company xxx imports specialist machines from the far east for sales, through approved dealers, in Europe. xxx sets up company yyy and gives it an exclusive territory (certain countries). xxx gives undertakings merely to resell the products to yyy but not to sell them direct to the dealers itself. Then, without any agreement or consultation whatsoever, xxx starts selling direct to the dealers and undercuts yyy's prices. yyy is suing xxx for unfair competition and breach of contract. It is xxx that is being called a "société champignon" (it is merely a quote from an e-mail, not part of the legal submission).

04:23 Mar 30, 2015 

".....cette société champignon a proposé des produits de (company xxx) à des prix étonnants..."

where is the criticism in this quote?
Offering lower prices than the competition is how markets are supposed to work, why should that be constructed as criticism?
A company in rapid expansion grabbing market shares by reducing prices - well - that's how it's supposed to work ... and as for "fairness" - you can always try pushing that idea to any big company ...

23:42 Mar 29, 2015 

the image of a "Mushroom" in "Mushroom management" may or may not be the same as in "société champignon".

My point is: so far the few real-life occurrences of "société champignon" indicate a meaning of "a company expanding like a mushroom".

Asker has given a very limited context and only his own explanations of the omitted bits - NOTHING to prove that "société champignon" has any connotation of "dodgy dealings". As a point of method, the ST is more relevant, or more precisely the only relevant.

If the murderer happened to be dressed in white, it doesn't mean "being dressed in white" = "being a murderer"

If an expanding company starts ignoring its contractual limitations, it DOESN'T MEAN any expanding company = a dodgy bunch

yes, again about logical links ...

23:23 Mar 29, 2015 

I find the expression "société champignon" used in this blog on a visit to Silicon Valley. It discusses Facebook, Twitter, Google... and Zynga, a social games company in San Francisco which I confess I'd never heard of (not my world). But it's clearly big, and quite new (founded 2007):

"Zynga
Il s’agissait de l’autre grande société du secteur visitée pendant cette semaine. Située à San Francisco, c’est un grand acteur des jeux sociaux et des jeux sur mobiles. La société créée en 2007. Une autre étonnante société “champignon” qui fait 1500 personnes et a déjà mené onze acquisitions."
http://www.oezratty.net/wordpress/2011/retour-en-silicon-val...

I must admit that this does tend to support the idea that it means a booming company.

23:02 Mar 29, 2015 

On seeing the term in the Kudoz list, and even before opening the question to see the context (such as it is) and the answers and discussion entries so far, I was taken back 25 years to a conversation with a Belgian colleague who was determined to explain to me the concept of 'mushroom management'. He told me in his personal variant of English:

Mushroom management is where the bosses keep everyone in the dark and every now then throw s**t at them.

22:29 Mar 29, 2015 

you might have induced wrong associations.

This "société champignon" might well have been indulging in ignoring contractual limitations, but that seems to be unrelated to what a "société champignon" is. (see reference)

If you give a truncated quote about "someone on a motorbike" smashing someone's windscreen, someone not paying attention enough to logical links could conclude that "someone on a motorbike" always = "someone's windscreen is going to be smashed". (a variant on "concomitance is not proof of causality")

22:10 Mar 29, 2015 

In the context here, it is a company that is an affiliate of the company "wronged" in the action and which has been in existence ever since the particular trading relationship started. I think the inference is that it started to operate "in the dark" and I am currently thinking along the lines of "shadowy company" ("shadowy" is a term liked by UK lawyers to describe anything that is not transparent and/or lawful)

20:26 Mar 29, 2015 

I find this phrase used in some places in ways that suggest it can mean a startup company: one that has just sprung up like a mushroom and doesn't have a solid track record. It doesn't seem to be just a term of criticism, though perhaps it is here.

16:35 Mar 29, 2015 

".....cette société champignon a proposé des produits de (company xxx) à des prix étonnants..."

It's simply a virulent term of criticism, I don't think further context will make much difference. Obviously I need a term suitable for use in a legal doc, but which conveys the unscrupulous nature of the defendant (being sued for breach of competition rules, breach of contract etc. etc.)

16:26 Mar 29, 2015 

You must be able to provide SOME context without giving away any confidential information. Otherwise your question is impossible to answer.