Dear Readers,

On behalf of my colleagues on the Board of Editors, I would like to extend a welcome to our 11th edition.

There is an apocryphal Chinese curse that is often quoted in the English language media – “may you live in interesting times”. Well, perhaps this curse was aimed at mankind in 2021! Though COVID-19 and its troublesome variants continue to provide us with a lot of ‘interesting times’, it is difficult to take one’s eyes off the world of international trade right now given there is so much happening.

From my perspective as a customs consultant living in Ireland this is something I can definitely attest to. On the one hand, we are currently confronted by the apparent impasse of the EU and the UK regarding the Northern Ireland Protocol which by all accounts could lead to the suspension of the EU-UK trade agreement, but on the other hand, we see the EU and the USA burying the hatchet on protracted disputes that caused much economic disruption on both sides of the Atlantic ocean. As if these issues were not interesting enough, the past few months have seen the UK issue the latest version of their Border Operating Model. We have seen a significant change to the Pan-Euro-Med convention. The actions of the regime in Belarus are having horrible consequences for thousands of desperate migrants; the EU imposes economic sanctions. And that’s just scratching the surface in Europe!

On behalf of my colleagues on the Editorial Board, I would like to express my gratitude to all the authors to contributed to this edition of the Customs Compliance and Risk Management Journal. This edition has a strong focus on getting the basics of your customs compliance right. Jessica Yang and Toby Spink have presented two articles aimed at those companies who have hitherto traded inside the EU’s Customs Union but as a result of Brexit, are confronted by new compliance requirements. Milda Stravinskė and Virginija Guobytė respectively deal with the fundamental issue of valuation in their articles. Dr Gediminas Valantiejus provides in-depth background and an examination of ECJ case C-706/20 – which really is a ‘must read’ for those interested in Customs Classification. Luis Gomez introduces the exciting world of Artificial Intelligence as applied to Customs Classification. Sam Draginich gives us a timely explanation about the pitfalls to avoid when using Preferential Trade Agreements. Also on the topic of origin, Zofija Pečiukonienė deals with the recent legislative changes regarding how trade from Oversea Countries and Territories (OTCs) is dealt with. Enrika Naujoke, Peter Mitchell and Momchil Antov shine a light on the activities of the Customs Broker and what this key player in supply chains can reasonably be expected to do. Kieran Gleeson introduces the topic of GVMS which is of crucial importance to those importing to or exporting from the UK by RoRo. In a further article, Momchil describes the role of a Customs representative in Bulgaria. Lourdes Catrain and Elena Theodoropoulou provide a very useful synopsis of the key elements from the recast of the EU dual-use Regulation. This is a critically important topic for EU exporters. Patrick Nieveler talks about how INFs – effectively the means of communication between the various EU national customs authorities really needs to be updated so as to accommodate more modern automated business practices to further unleash the potential of the customs union. Bhupendra Singh provides an interesting article on how Returned Goods Relief is administered in India. As usual, we are presented with the indispensable EU law updates. Similarly, Iryna Pavlenko and Oleg Kyryievskyi present updates from Ukraine. On the trade policy side, Andrius Košel provides a very pertinent article regarding the sanctions that the EU has applied to Belarus.

Finally, in a real coup for our publication, Jessica Yang interviews Timothy Lyons, author of one of the Bibles of Customs compliance for those of us living in the EU, i.e. EU Customs Law (published by Oxford EU Law Library). Do not miss the opportunity to meet the author at the Books on Customs webinar!

As an editorial group, we are very proud of the network we are part of. We would like to nurture the growth of our community, promote the sharing of expertise and encourage our readership to comment on articles they like. Furthermore, we a very much open to constructive comments!

On behalf of my colleagues on the editorial board, we hope you enjoy this edition. We wish you all a happy Christmas and all the very best for 2022.

Dr. David Savage

The pitfalls of free trade agreements – claiming back duty paid due to error