Latest contributors

Now operating his own consultancy company, Anthony Buckley provides advice to a number of accountancy and other firms, and has experience of training in customs for Irish Exporters Association, CILT Skillnet and Chartered Accountants Ireland. Formerly Head of Revenue’s Customs Service, he led Brexit planning for Irish Customs up to mid-2018.  In his Customs role, he represented Ireland at EU discussions, and in the World Customs Organisation.

Good customs decisions rest on current knowledge and depth - and both take continuous learning to maintain. Customs Compliance & Risk Management (CCRM) journal is how practitioners keep pace. We publish new articles online continuously, gathered into an edition every two months. They follow what is changing in EU customs and trade compliance, alongside the jurisdictions that matter most to EU trade - the UK, the US and Ukraine among them. And they work through what it means in practice. We go past the news to what a sound decision needs: what changed, why it matters, and what to do. Every article is grounded in primary law and written by a named expert. Country updates, CJEU rulings, and analysis of the regimes reshaping trade - the UCC, rules of origin, CBAM, e-commerce duty - build the knowledge practitioners draw on to decide with confidence. The Editor-in-Chief is Enrika Naujokė, based in Lithuania. The Editorial Board brings together experts from several countries - among them Dr Ilona Mishchenko in Ukraine, Dr David Savage in Ireland, Ira Reese in the United States and Omer Wagner in Israel.

Ramūnas Šablinskas has worked with artificial neural networks since 1995, when his master's thesis examined their optimisation. The same networks are the basis of today's large language models. His experience also covers digital identity and electronic signature frameworks, on which he has worked since 2004: he was solution architect for the mobile identity solution introduced by the Lithuanian mobile network operators, and he helped to build the digital identity frameworks of Estonia, Norway and Finland. He holds a PhD in mathematics and computer science from Vytautas Magnus University and the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, with a thesis on parallel algorithms for distributed memory computers.

Godfried Smit studied Dutch Law and Tax Law at Erasmus University Rotterdam and Leiden University. He began his career with Dutch Customs and subsequently held various positions at evofenedex. Godfried serves as Secretary General of the European Shippers’ Council (ESC), representing the interests of European shippers in Brussels. In this role, he is closely involved in European policy developments related to customs, trade facilitation, international trade and freight transport, with particular responsibility for inland, rail and maritime transport. With extensive experience in customs and international trade, Godfried is actively involved in discussions on EU customs reform, trade compliance, supply-chain data and the development of efficient and resilient European supply chains. Alongside his professional career, Godfried has taught international and customs law at Leiden University. He is a frequent speaker at conferences, seminars and industry events on customs, transport, international trade and European regulatory developments.

Eva Cartwright is a Senior Manager for Customs and Digitalisation at CLECAT, the European Association for Forwarding, Transport, Logistics and Customs Services, where she represents the European freight forwarding, logistics and customs sector before the EU institutions. Specific areas of Eva's expertise include: customs compliance and trade facilitation, product compliance and sectoral digitalisation, P&R  enforcement, freight forwarding, transport and supply chain management. Eva brings over 25 years of hands-on industry leadership to her institutional advocacy work. At CLECAT, Eva leads policy work on legislative dossiers spanning external trade, trade policy, customs and digitalisation, with daily institutional engagement across Member State Permanent Representations, the European Parliament and European Commission services. She is a delegate to expert groups of DG TAXUD, DG TRADE and DG MOVE, and a regular speaker and rapporteur at European industry conferences.

Enrika Naujokė is co-founder and director of CustomsClear and Editor-in-Chief of the Customs Compliance & Risk Management (CCRM) journal. She built CustomsClear around a simple conviction: however far technology advances, customs and trade compliance decisions - and the responsibility for them - will always rest with a person. Her aim is that practitioners do not face those decisions alone and can stand behind them with confidence. CustomsClear brings together articles and videos from more than 200 contributing experts, together with AI assistants that help practitioners find fast, defensible answers to customs and trade compliance questions, traced back to the underlying legislation. A certified customs broker, Ms Naujokė has worked across logistics, customs brokerage and manufacturing, including as an in-house customs supervisor. Her work covers tariff classification, customs valuation, origin, prohibitions and restrictions, sanctions and export controls, and the EU Customs Reform. Since 2012 she has edited Customs Law for Practitioners, a monthly publication for Lithuanian customs practitioners, and has been Editor-in-Chief of the CCRM journal since 2020. She also contributes articles to WCO News and the Global Trade and Customs Journal, particularly on customs knowledge and professional standards. Ms Naujokė is co-founder and director of the Lithuanian Customs Practitioners Association, which has trained more than 400 customs brokers, and sits on the Lithuanian Customs Consultative Committee. She follows EU rule-making through EUROPRO, CONFIAD and CLECAT and takes part in the European Commission's Trade Contact Group. She also serves on the committee of the 'Customs Process Management' MBA programme at Vytautas Magnus University.

Andrius Košel is an attorney-at-law at the professional law partnership NOOR legal, with more than 20 years of experience advising local and international clients on matters of transport, insurance, and customs law. Andrius Košel has extensive experience in corporate law, commercial transactions, and dispute resolution. Education: Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Private Law, Faculty of Law, University of Amsterdam (UvA); Master’s degree in Commercial Law, Faculty of Law, Vilnius University (VU). Languages: Lithuanian, English, Russian Service: consulting, legal Industries: transport, insurance, customs law, company law, commercial transactions, dispute resolution, competition law

Many years of experience working as the Head of the Strategic Goods Control and Sanctions Division at the Ministry of the Economy and Innovation, contributing to the development and implementation of strategic goods control policy in Lithuania, as well as administering the licensing of dual-use goods (i.e. goods that can be used for both civilian and military purposes) and military equipment. Actively involved in ensuring the effective implementation of EU sanctions to prevent goods and technologies listed under sanctions from being directly or indirectly exported to Russia or Belarus. Extensive experience in international cooperation to enhance the effectiveness of sanctions implementation and strategic control in collaboration with EU partners, the United States, and other allies. In-depth knowledge of international regimes, as export control is also governed by international agreements and regimes such as the Wassenaar Arrangement, the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Australia Group, the Missile Technology Control Regime, and others.

Compliance decisions in customs and trade need two things: competence and speed. CustomsClear delivers both - AI tools that turn hours of research into seconds, and the knowledge to stand behind every decision. Built to cover EU customs law, for both ends of the trade lanes into and out of the EU, including EU-UK. For everyone who handles cross-border trade: importers, exporters, manufacturers, forwarders, carriers, customs brokers, consultants and legal advisers - from one-person businesses to international organisations. Stop re-researching every code. Classify AI, Smart Taric AI and Sanctions AI answer classification, tariff, duty, restriction and sanctions questions in seconds. They draw on the sources you would otherwise piece together: TARIC, BTIs, ECICS, CJEU case law, national tariffs and sanctions lists. Every answer traces back to the legislation, so you can defend it to an auditor or client. The AI does the analysis; you apply your judgement. Stay current and back it up. The CustomsClear knowledge platform brings together content from more than 200 experts. It keeps you ahead of EU regulatory change - the UCC, CBAM, EUDR, sanctions, rules of origin and more, across more than 350 laws enforced by customs. Regulatory updates, practical articles, how-to videos, live events and training courses give you the reasoning, not just the answer. One defensible way of working, across your team. Give everyone who classifies, checks tariffs or screens sanctions one consistent, defensible method. Onboard and upskill new staff, resolve questions faster, and cut errors and the queries that cause border delays. Try the AI assistants free, available in all 24 EU languages. Or explore the knowledge platform at customsclear.net.

Advocate for customs, indirect taxation (Purchase tax, GST, VAT), import, export, regulation, trade levies, international trade, shipping, forwarding, marine, aerial transportation, including court litigation. Omer has more than 15 years of experience in these fields. He holds a notary license as well. Omer serves as legal counsel of the Tel-Aviv customs agents and freight forwarders association. He worked in the biggest law firms in Israel dealing with customs and indirect taxation, also served in the Israeli district attorney and represented the State (customs authority). Author of many articles related to customs and international trade, including: classification, valuation, origin, customs compliance, and many more. His articles were published, among others, in the WCO magazine, Global Trade and Customs Journal, World Customs Journal, and in CCRM as well. Member of the editorial board of the Customs Compliance & Risk Management (CCRM) journal. Languages: HE, EN, AR, RU Service: consulting, legal Topics: classification, valuation, origin, customs compliance, and many more Industries: customs, indirect taxation (Purchase tax, GST, VAT), import, export, regulation, trade levies, international trade, shipping, forwarding, marine, aerial transportation, including court litigation