EU Court Advisor Backs Commission in Chinese Solar Duty Fight

Chinese solar-panel maker Zhejiang Sunflower Great Health and EU importer Sunowe Solar should lose their legal challenge to retroactive duties on Chinese solar-panel imports, a non-binding opinion for the EU's top court recommended on Thursday, November 5, 2026.

The opinion, issued for the Court of Justice of the European Union, addresses a dispute that has run for years. At its center sits a 2019 decision by the European Commission. The Commission applied duties to past imports after finding that the two companies had breached a minimum sale price agreement.

What exactly did the Commission decide?

The companies had operated under an undertaking — a minimum sale price agreement with the EU executive. Such arrangements let exporters avoid anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties, provided they honor the price commitments they accepted. The Commission concluded in 2019 that Zhejiang Sunflower Great Health and Sunowe Solar had breached those commitments.

That finding triggered consequences with retrospective reach. The Commission did not simply apply duties going forward. It applied them to imports that had already entered the EU market, reaching back to transactions completed before the decision itself. This retroactive application is the heart of the litigation.

The two companies challenged the decision. They lost before the EU's lower court and took their case to the Court of Justice, the EU's highest tribunal in Luxembourg. Thursday's opinion represents the next, advisory stage of that appeal.

What does the opinion recommend?

The Advocate General's opinion, reported by MLex's Karoline Del Vecchio on November 5, 2026, recommends that the court dismiss the appeal. In the reporter's summary, the companies "should lose their appeal to duties imposed on past Chinese solar-panel imports."

The operative recommendation is straightforward. The court should not overturn the Commission's 2019 decision to apply the duties retroactively.

Practitioners should treat the opinion as a signal, not a verdict. Advocate General opinions are non-binding. The Court of Justice decides the case itself, through its own judgment, after considering the opinion. In most instances the court follows the Advocate General's reasoning in substance, though it is not obliged to do so, and it may decide on different grounds.

Why does retroactivity matter for traders?

The case tests how far the Commission can go once it finds that an exporter has broken a price undertaking. Duties applied only prospectively would affect future shipments alone. Retroactive duties reach back and attach liability to goods already imported and sold.

For importers, the difference is financial exposure measured after the fact. An importer that cleared goods at the border, believing the undertaking held, can later face a duty bill on those same transactions if the Commission finds a breach and applies the remedy backward. Sunowe Solar, as the EU importer in this dispute, carries exactly that kind of exposure.

For exporters, the case defines the stakes of staying inside an undertaking's terms. A breach finding does not merely end the arrangement; it can reopen the past.

What happens next?

The Court of Justice will now deliberate. A judgment will follow in due course, and it is that ruling — not Thursday's opinion — which will settle whether the 2019 Commission decision stands.

If the court follows the recommendation, the retroactive duties on the two companies' solar-panel imports survive judicial review at the final EU level. If it departs from the opinion, the companies could yet secure annulment of the retroactive application and the financial consequences flowing from it.

Trade counsel watching the case will note the sequence: a 2019 Commission decision, a breach finding on a minimum sale price agreement, a lost challenge at the lower court, an appeal, and now an adverse advisory opinion dated November 5, 2026. The judgment, when it comes, will carry the force that the opinion lacks.