Source: Flickr/Luke Price.
Seraphim Solar has been removed from the MIP by the European Commission after it was found to have been breaching the price undertaking’s rules.
According to the EC, Seraphim was selling modules to an unrelated party in the EU then reselling them below the level of the MIP. The EC’s investigations have led it to believe that the company in question was in fact related to Seraphim in China.
Punitive duties must now be paid on a ream of invoices dating as far back as April 2014.
PV Tech understands that two companies in the EU have already been given seven figure customs bills related to module sales that were later found to have been made outwith the rules of the MIP. It is not known which manufacturers’ modules related to those cases.
The EC said the responsibility for the breaches lay solely with Seraphim and would have no impact on the future of the undertaking as a whole.
The responsibility for paying back-dated anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties lies with the EU importer. In this instance, that would be the company found to be related to Seraphim China.
A growing number of manufacturers have voluntarily left the MIP choosing instead to serve EU customers from manufacturing facilities outside China. Seraphim has a factory in Mississippi.
A quirk of the way the MIP is calculated from US dollars to Euros has artificially held the price level higher than global cell and module averages, further distorting the market.
China’s largest solar producers have now all left the MIP, largely by choice.
Seraphim had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.
