Tim Brightbill Comments while Commerce Deliberates on China Solar Case

Tim Brightbill, a partner in the International Trade Practice, was quoted by SNL Financial after the Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing (CASM) hosted a webinar on Aug. 9 providing an overview of the solar trade case against China.  Mr. Brightbill is the lead attorney for the trade complaint that has resulted in preliminary penalties against Chinese producers of crystalline silicon solar cells and modules.

The article reported that “CASM is made up of more than 200 U.S. solar industry members, including SolarWorld, which filed the petitions to open investigations in October 2011.”

Tim Brightbill said CASM firmly believes the case will benefit the U.S. industry:  “We feel very strongly that the best way to have an innovative and growing solar industry in the U.S. is to have domestic manufacturing here, to have the companies here that are going to have the breakthroughs in technology in the future.  We do understand it’s a controversial case.  We understand not everyone agrees with the domestic industry, but we do hope the community in the industry will understand why we did this and why we feel strongly about it.”

The Commerce Department’s final decision is expected in October, followed by the International Trade Commission’s in November.