The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) is now beginning its final phase “injury investigation,” which will result in a determination in November as to whether U.S. producers are harmed by imports of allegedly dumped and/or subsidized imports of Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells and Modules from China.

The parallel dumping and subsidy actions began with the filing of a petition by Solar World Industries America Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of a German parent company, in October 2011. In December, the ITC issued a unanimous affirmative preliminary injury determination, rejecting arguments by companies opposed to the action that price declines in the industry resulted not from Chinese imports but rather from plummeting silicon prices, reduced U.S. government incentives for the housing industry to use solar cells/panels, and limited U.S. demand. The ITC will revisit these arguments in its more expansive final phase investigation, in which importers, U.S. producers, purchasers and Chinese producers will be required to answer ITC questionnaires. All parties with interests at stake are well advised to make their positions and relevant facts known to the ITC.

If the ITC finds that the U.S. industry making these products is in fact injured (or threatened with injury) by the imports, the United States will impose tariffs on imports of these products. The amount of the tariffs will be determined by the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) in separate proceedings. DOC preliminarily found that subsidization was occurring in the range of 2.90 to 4.73 percent and dumping in the range of 31.14 to 249.96 percent, but DOC could change these rates in its final investigations, which are currently ongoing.

Key dates in the ITC investigation's final phase are: