The Commission is legally obliged to open an anti-dumping investigation following the complaint from EU Pro Sun, an industry association, providing evidence that exporting producers from China are dumping a particular product into the EU and causing injury to the Union industry. The product covered by the investigation is solar panels and their key components, i.e. solar cells and solar wafers.

Following the EU Pro Sun complaint lodged on 25 July 2012, the European Commission decided to launch an anti-dumping investigation into imports of solar panels and their key components (i.e. solar cells and solar wafers) originating in China. In terms of import value affected, this is the most significant anti-dumping complaint the European Commission has received so far: in 2011, China exported solar panels and their key components worth around €21 billion to the EU. In December 2009, the Commission already proposed 15-month extension of anti-dumping measures on leather shoes imported from China.

The Commission is legally obliged to open an anti-dumping investigation if it receives a valid complaint from a Union industry which provides evidence that exporting producers from one or more countries are dumping a particular product into the EU and causing injury to the Union industry. According to the Commission, in this case the complainant has brought sufficient elements showing possible price dumping by the exporting producers on the EU market, injury suffered by the Union industry, and a possible causal link between the dumped imports and the injury suffered by the Union industry.

The investigation will take 15 months in total, whereas it is possible according to trade defence rules to impose provisional anti-dumping duties within 9 months, provided there is sufficient prima facie evidence of dumping.