Artikel 18

(1). No debtor shall be entitled to invoke against the establishment of an offer of settlement or against the settlement of a debt the expiration of a period of prescription or of a preclusive period of limitation for the assertion of any claim respecting such debt, which has not expired before 1st June, 1933, earlier than a date determined by treating the running of such respective periods as suspended from 1st June, 1933, until the expiration of eighteen months from the date on which the present Agreement and the relevant Annex thereto become applicable to such debt.
(2). Without prejudice to the provisions of paragraph (1) of this Article, periods of prescription and preclusive periods of limitation referred to in paragraph (1) which are applicable to the bonded debts specified in Sections A and B of Annex I and to those covered by Annex II to the present Agreement shall not, for the purpose of a settlement, be deemed to have expired before the respective dates on which the offer of settlement made by the debtor ceases to be open for acceptance in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 8 (b) of Annex I and of Article 15 of the present Agreement.
(3). The acceptance of an offer of settlement or an assent to a settlement by the creditor in respect of a debt in accordance with the provisions of Article 15 of the present Agreement shall effect an interruption of periods of prescription and preclusive periods of limitation for the assertion of a claim respecting such debt.
(4). The periods referred to in paragraphs (1), (2) and (3) of this Article shall not include periods for the lodging of an appeal against the decision of a court, arbitral body or an administrative authority, periods covered by Section 12, paragraph 3, of the German Law on Insurance Contracts, or periods provided by the German Laws on the Validation of Bonds.
(5). The above provisions shall apply whether the periods have been established by German or other law, by order of a court, of an arbitral body or of an administrative authority, by contract or other legal act. The Federal Republic of Germany will ensure that they are applied in German courts even though the obligation is one which, as to its content, is governed by foreign law.