its criticism of the Malloch Brown family's occupancy of a government-owned, so-called "grace and favour" apartment in London, previously used by former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. On 18 November 2007, The Sunday Times fuelled the controversy by reporting that "some see the hand of Miliband behind the savaging of Malloch Brown in The Spectator". On 7 July 2009, Malloch Brown announced he was stepping down from his position as Minister of State for Africa, Asia and the United Nations at the end of July 2009, citing personal and family reasons. Post-ministerial career (2010–present) Malloch Brown was appointed chairman of global affairs for FTI Consulting in September 2010. Consultancy appointments to oil companies Vitol and SouthWest Energy Ltd (both approved by the relevant parliamentary committee) were reported in 2010. In 2013, Malloch Brown and FTI Consulting came to a legal settlement with Israeli mining billionaire Beny Steinmetz, who had sued them claiming Malloch Brown had given confidential information to George Soros which led to a smear campaign against Steinmetz's mining company. The out-of-court settlement of €90,000 plus costs was without any determination of liability. Malloch Brown was a member of The Guardian'''s global development advisory panel. He contributed to the panel beside U2's Bono, the Center for Economic and Policy Research's Ha-Joon Chang and Mark Weisbrot, Paul Collier and others. Malloch Brown's book The Unfinished Global Revolution'' came out early 2011 on Penguin Press. Among his non-governmental and private sector roles, Malloch Brown became chairman of the board of directors of SGO Corporation Limited, a holding company whose primary asset is the election technology and voting machine manufacturer Smartmatic, in 2014. He has also served as chair of the Royal African Society and as a member of the Executive Committee of the International Crisis Group. In July 2014, he became co-chair of the Board of Trustees of the latter organisation. In December 2020, Malloch Brown was announced as succeeding Patrick Gaspard as president of Open Society Foundations on 1 January 2021. Personal life Malloch Brown is an only child. He has four children with his wife. He is a close friend of billionaire speculator George Soros, with the two having worked together in their roles at the UN and Open Society Foundations, and he rented an apartment owned by Soros while living with his family in New York working on UN assignments. Honours Malloch Brown was appointed Knight Commander of