Liechtenstein seems to have drawn many more German savers than bigger low-tax or no-tax rivals such as Switzerland or Luxembourg - and also more scrutiny from German tax authorities.

The principality has proved fertile ground for the latter. Since 2000, prosecutors in Bochum in north- west Germany have recovered €46m in tax dues and levied €22m in fines on 100 Germans with trusts there. Most were clients of Herbert Batliner, the Vaduz-based asset manager who paid a fine in 2007 in return for German prosecutors dropping a case against him relating to the abetting of tax fraud.