Media Sources Quote Matt Nicely, Julia Eppard on Solar Energy Trade Case

Akin Gump international trade partner Matthew Nicely and counsel Julia Eppard were quoted in Solar Builder’s article “Assessing AD/CVD: The impact of the circumvention trade case and bleak outlook for U.S. solar market,” which discusses the Department of Commerce’s Auxin Solar antidumping circumvention case and its impact on three quarters of solar companies. Commerce’s action cancelled or delayed solar panel deliveries, according to the publication. The comments come from a webinar hosted by the Solar Energy Industries Association on April 5. [Note: SEIA is a client of Akin Gump.]

Eppard said that Commerce has considerable discretion, and she believes it “will have information to make a decision as quickly as possible. We believe they could reach a negative determination before [the August 29 deadline for a preliminary determination].”

She noted that Commerce could extend that deadline and can also change its ruling from preliminary to final, adding that this has only happened when a positive determination was switched to a negative one. Eppard also said that separate determinations are made for each country based on information gathered from each country’s largest producers.

On a related topic, Nicely said, “Those are not final duties because the ultimate duty liability in an anti-dumping case is determined in the administrative review process. But given the complexity of this case, we, at this point, do not know how an administrative review of a given company in China is going to be handled in regard to its affiliates or customers in Southeast Asia. The risk here is those retroactive cash deposits and later on when those duties become final. Even if reduced, they are a potential significant liability.”

For its article “US solar industry in 'existential crisis' from Commerce solar tariff investigation,” S&P Global Commodity Insights quoted Eppard on the pending decision in the Auxin Solar matter. “We believe the Department of Commerce has enough information to make a decision and make it quickly,” said Eppard, adding that it is unlikely that the U.S. solar industry will hear anything about rates until the preliminary decision is expected on August 29.

SNL Power Daily in “US solar industry reels after 'disastrous decision' to open tariff probe” noted that the SEIA is calling for issuance of a negative preliminary determination and quoted Nicely from the April 5 briefing as saying that an affirmative determination could result in retroactive application of duties to imports going as far back as November 2021.

He said, “You would like to think that the Commerce Department would be protecting U.S. industry here where in fact what's happening is that a small module producer is putting the rest of the industry at risk, not only downstream industry but its own module producing industry.”