In law

Law

Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

, dépeçage refers to the concept in the conflict of laws

Conflict of laws

Conflict of laws is a set of procedural rules that determines which legal system and which jurisdiction's applies to a given dispute...

 whereby different issues within a particular case may be governed by the laws of different states. In common law

Common law

Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...

 countries dépeçage is usually used to refer to a single contract

Contract

A contract is an agreement entered into by two parties or more with the intention of creating a legal obligation, which may have elements in writing. Contracts can be made orally. The remedy for breach of contract can be "damages" or compensation of money. In equity, the remedy can be specific...

 which provides that different parts of the contract shall be governed by different laws. See Don King Productions, Inc. v. Douglas, 742 F.Supp.2d 786, 791 (S.D.N.Y. 1990).

The concept originated in civil law

Civil law (legal system)

Civil law is a legal system inspired by Roman law and whose primary feature is that laws are codified into collections, as compared to common law systems that gives great precedential weight to common law on the principle that it is unfair to treat similar facts differently on different...

 countries, but has also been adopted in common law countries such as the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 pursuant to the Rome Convention on the law applicable to contractual obligations

Rome Convention (contract)

The Convention on the Law Applicable to Contractual Obligations 1980 is a measure in private international law or conflict of laws which aims to create at least a harmonised, if not a unified, choice of law system in contracts within the European Union...

 (Article 3(1)).

In practice, it is relatively rare for a contract to have more than one expressly chosen governing law. However, there are now three examples where this may occur:

• In derivative
  Derivative
  In calculus, a branch of mathematics, the derivative is a measure of how a function changes as its input changes. Loosely speaking, a derivative can be thought of as how much one quantity is changing in response to changes in some other quantity; for example, the derivative of the position of a...
  
  s transactions governed by ISDA standard documentation, it is not uncommon for the ISDA Master Agreement to be governed by the laws of New York
  New York
  New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
  
   state, and for the credit support annexe to be governed by English law
  English law
  English law is the legal system of England and Wales, and is the basis of common law legal systems used in most Commonwealth countries and the United States except Louisiana...
  
  . This is because the provisions of English law relating to title transfer under the credit support annexe are thought to be more favourable to the secured party than New York law under the equivalent credit support annexe published by ISDA. In reality however, although the annex is described as forming part of the same agreement as the Master Agreement, physically as well as conceptually, they are really two separate documents.
• In ship financing transactions, it is quite common for a statutory ship mortgage to be taken over the vessel which will be governed by the laws of the state in which the ship is registered (which will often be an Offshore Financial Centre
  Offshore financial centre
  An offshore financial centre , though not precisely defined, is usually a small, low-tax jurisdiction specializing in providing corporate and commercial services to non-resident offshore companies, and for the investment of offshore funds....
  
   or jurisdiction which provides for flags of convenience
  Flag of convenience
  The term flag of convenience describes the business practice of registering a merchant ship in a sovereign state different from that of the ship's owners, and flying that state's civil ensign on the ship. Ships are registered under flags of convenience to reduce operating costs or avoid the...
  
  ), however, such mortgages are usually supplemented by a separate deed of covenants, and these will normally be governed by the law which governs the primary financial documentation.
• Following a number of cases in which courts held Capital One to Virginia's three year statute of limitations in its efforts to enforce its credit card agreement against defaulting cardholders, changes were made to their cardholder agreement. Now their agreement says you waive the statute of limitations if it can be waived in your state, and also that if it's not waived it will be the longer of Virginia's or your state's.

Etymology

The term comes from the French word, dépeçage, meaning dismemberment

Dismemberment

Dismemberment is the act of cutting, tearing, pulling, wrenching or otherwise removing, the limbs of a living thing. It may be practiced upon human beings as a form of capital punishment, as a result of a traumatic accident, or in connection with murder, suicide, or cannibalism...

, which is in turn derived from the verb, dépecer, meaning to carve up or to analyze in minute detail.