In the event of the acquisition of a credit portfolio, insurance companies and pension funds will receive the opportunity to register the mortgaged claims in a refinancing register (Refinanzierungsregister) as of January 1, 2014. With the registration the acquisition of the mortgaged claims would be insolvency-proof. As a result, credit portfolio transactions should be easier and safer to structure in the future.

Last Friday, November 29, 2013, the German legislator eventually agreed on the Act Amending the German Investment Tax Act and Other Acts (AIFM Tax Amendment Act, or “GITA–AIFM“). A period of unease and uncertainty for German investors in foreign investment funds has thus come to an end as the German Investment Tax Act (“GITA“) scope was hanging in limbo after the German legislator, during the last legislative period, failed to base the scope of application of the GITA on the new German Investment Code (Kapitalanlagegesetzbuch or “KAGB“), which implemented the European Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (“AIFMD”) into domestic law, and thereby repealed the German Investment Act as of July 22, 2013 (see beleuchtet, dated September 5, 2013).