Legal

SolarWorld has confirmed to pv magazine that an anti-dumping complaint has been filed by a consortium of European manufacturers with the European Commission. More information is expected to be released by the Bonn-based company this afternoon.

Turnabout is fair play—or rather, fair trade, according to China, which on July 20 announced that it would launch countervailing duty (CVD) and anti-dumping (AD) investigations against the U.S. solar industry, as well as an AD case against South Korea.

On June 22, the Renewable Energy Corporation (REC) announced a number of financial restructuring measures including measures to restructure its revolving debt facility and to offer approximately 870,000 million new shares to raise around NOK1.3 billion (US$218 million).

It is only a matter of time until SolarWorld AG finally files an anti-dumping (AD) complaint with the European Commission, alleging that China has flooded the German market with underpriced solar cells and modules, to the detriment of domestic manufacturers and in deviation from fair trade policies. In anticipation that the case will come sooner rather than later, Jefferies Group, Inc. held a conference call to provide insights into the differences between how trade cases are handled in the United States and the EU.

The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) has said that “several” subsidy programs in China have been found to be countervailable. These findings, however, have not impacted on the original preliminary countervailing duty (CVD) rates announced in March.

Three months after making its preliminary countervailing duty (CVD) determination, the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) has reportedly upped the rates Chinese photovoltaic manufacturers will have to pay for exporting their cells to the U.S.

Chinese polysilicon producers are allegedly putting pressure on their government to impose duties on U.S. imports.

According to industry analysts at Jefferies, the anti-dumping and countervailing duty trade case will move to Europe this month.

The Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy (CASE) has today called on the U.S. and Chinese governments to work together to avoid a “destructive” global trade war. Meanwhile, an analyst reports that tariffs are too late to protect U.S. and European manufacturers from Chinese competition.

Yingli Green Energy Holding Company Limited has recorded a relatively positive first quarter (Q1), despite the imposition of preliminary dumping tariffs by the U.S. While its financials significantly improved sequentially, it still suffered major losses compared to Q1 2011.