In late June, the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and the Federal Ministry of Finance published the ministerial draft of a Second Act to Strengthen Occupational Pensions. Among other things, it provides for amendments to the Regulation on the Investment of the Guarantee Assets of Pensionskassen, Funeral Expenses Funds and Small Insurance Undertakings (Investment Regulation, or Anlageverordnung). The changes will also affect a number of professional pension schemes via references in the relevant state laws. According to the draft, pension funds are not affected.

At the end of last year, the Federal Ministry of Finance published the application decree on the CFC Act. There is positive news to report: (1) Investors, for whom the attributed income does not trigger a tax liability, do not have to submit a CFC return (for example, pension funds and investment funds), (2) for the calculation of the degree of control, there is no presumption of acting together with the other partners of a partnerships if partnership interest does not exceed 5 percent.

In our beinformed dated October 4, 2023, we presented the intended changes to the previous interest rate cap regulations and the introduction of the so-called interest rate cap through the Act to Strengthen Growth Opportunities, Investment and Innovation as well as Tax Simplification and Fairness (Growth Opportunities Act). The Growth Opportunities Act was ultimately not passed, but some of the regulations on the interest rate cap have made it into the Act to Promote Orderly Secondary Credit Markets and to Implement Directive (EU) 2021/2167 on Credit Service Providers and Credit Purchasers and to Amend Other Provisions of Financial Market Law (Secondary Credit Market Promotion Act), which has now been passed. The anti-fragmentation regulation (amendment to the regulation of exemption limits) and the interest rate cap still provided for in the Growth Opportunities Act were not included in the Secondary Credit Market Promotion Act.