as the Social Democrat's challenger to German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the 2013 federal elections, Steinbrueck announced he would quit the board of steel conglomerate ThyssenKrupp and all outside work, though not an unpaid seat on soccer club Borussia Dortmund's board where he saw no conflict of interest. His decision prompted a slew of criticism of his high earnings outside the Bundestag from Merkel's center-right coalition but also from the SPD's left wing and from anti-graft campaigners. The seat on ThyssenKrupp's board and all but four of the other 85 appointments and engagements listed for the time between 2009 and 2012 were in excess of 560,000 euros. Later in his campaign, Steinbrück canceled a speech at Bank Sarasin & Cie after Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that the Swiss private bank was being investigated by German prosecutors for possible tax evasion. Soon after, he declared he had earned 1.25 million euros ($1.6 million) by giving 89 speeches between 2009 and 2012 at companies and banks including Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, BNP Paribas, Sal. Oppenheim, Union Investment, Ernst & Young, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Baker & McKenzie. This sum was in addition to his salary as a member of parliament, which was over 7,500 euros a month. The data also showed Steinbrück gave 237 other addresses for free to schools and charities, and got industry lobby groups to donate to charity instead of paying him. At the same time, he said the chancellor's salary, at about 250,000 euros annually, is too low because regional savings bank directors are paid more. Namibia trip in 2007 In April 2007, when Germany held the presidencies of both the European Union and the G7, Steinbrück was criticized for going on holiday with his family in Namibia instead of attending a meeting of G7 finance ministers in Washington and for refusing the offer of other G7 members to succeed Gordon Brown as chair of the International Monetary and Finance Committee (IMFC). Diplomatic tensions with Switzerland and Liechtenstein As finance minister, Steinbrück criticized Germany's neighbours in a row over tax havens. In the wake of German investigations against the LGT Group of Liechtenstein in 2008, Steinbrück threatened that Germany would impose a levy on all fund transfers to the principality, in effect reinstating pre-1990s-style capital controls, if the country did not change its ways. Speaking to reporters in Paris after a conference on measures to combat tax avoidance, he