Pursuant to the Discount Rate Transition Act, read in conjunction with the Regulation Governing the Use of the Base Rate as a Reference Variable, this rate has replaced the discount rate from 1 January 1999 wherever the latter is used in contracts and regulations as a reference variable for interest and other payments. This base rate is the discount rate of the Bundesbank which applied on 31 December 1998. It changes on 1 January, 1 May and 1 September of each year, and will change for the first time on 1 May 1999 if the interest rate applied by the ECB to its longer-term refinancing operations (marginal rate) has changed by at least 0.5 percentage point. Wherever the base rate as per Discount Rate Transition Act is used as a reference variable for interest and other payments in Federal legislation (in the field of civil law and judicial procedural law), in state legislation (as stipulated in the Act Introducing the Civil Code) or in executory instruments and contracts based on such regulations, it has been replaced from 1 January 2002 by the base rate pursuant to section 247 of the Civil Code (see also time series BBK01:SU0115). Pursuant to Article 4, section 1 of the Act on the Amendment of Provisions concerning the Evaluation of Insurance Enterprises' Capital Investment, the Discount Rate Transition Act and the Regulation Governing the Use of the Base Rate as a Reference Variable have been repealed. Pursuant to Article 4 section 2 of the same Act, from 4 April 2002 the discount rate and the base rate under the Discount Rate Transition Act were replaced by the base rate pursuant to section 247 of the Civil Code. This means that, from 4 April 2002, the base rate pursuant to Discount Rate Transition Act finally ceases to have any relevance to any claims arising from the date onwards. Therefore, holders of claims, to which the base rate under the Discount Rate Transition Act still applied after 1 January 2002, have to adjust their calculation of interest immediately with the entry into force of the Act on the Amendment of Provisions concerning the Evaluation of Insurance Enterprises' Capital Investment and the Repeal of the Discount Rate Transition Act.
