First Solar is facing a class action lawsuit from shareholders over its response to US tariff policy and alleged “misleading” statements about its resilience to the shifting policy landscape.
New York-based law firm Pomerantz has brought the class action case against Ohio-headquartered cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin-film module manufacturer First Solar on behalf of shareholders who bought First Solar securities between 26 February 2025 and 24 February 2026.
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The suit alleges that in this period, First Solar “made materially false and misleading statements regarding the company’s business, operations and compliance policies” regarding both the impact of the US president’s “reciprocal” tariff regime and First Solar’s decision to reduce production at its factories in Malaysia and Vietnam.
In 2025, the company announced it would reduce production at its Southeast Asian facilities to account for US policy uncertainty following Trump’s election and “a supply and demand imbalance for Southeast Asian product”, according to Pomerantz. It also reportedly “reassured” investors that US module prices would remain stable.
On 2 April, president Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariff announcements put levy rates of 24% and 46% on Malaysia and Vietnam, respectively, which the case said presented a “challenge to First Solar.” Crucially, throughout the period, the case alleges that First Solar “continued to assure investors that the dynamic policy landscape presented a ‘long-term favourable’ for First Solar and actually “strengthened [its] relative position in the solar manufacturing industry”.
Indeed, despite revising its 2025 guidance down after the initial announcement of the president’s tariffs, in its Q2 2025 financial results First Solar’s CEO, Mark Widmar, said that US policy changes, including Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) restrictions, “places First Solar in a greater position of strength than it was following the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022.”
First Solar’s stock was downgraded by around 10% by investment banking and capital markets firm Jefferies in January 2026, shifting from “hold” to “buy” following the company’s lowered guidance, “significant de-bookings” and “concern” over “underutilisation” at international facilities and the impact of tariffs. Another class action suit, led by Pomerantz, was issued after the downgrade.
The company’s stock fell again in February, by 13.61%, following its full year and Q4 2025 results.
Based on these factors and the company’s rhetoric, the case claims that First Solar “overstated First Solar’s capacity to manage the impact of US tariff policy on the Company’s business … understated the extent to which its responses to US tariff policy, including the intentional underutilisation of production facilities in Malaysia and Vietnam, and attempted relocation of production to the US, were likely to negatively impact First Solar’s projected performance in the 2026 fiscal year … as a result, [its] public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.”
PV Tech has contacted First Solar for comment on this story.
Alongside its statements about its strength following the Trump administration’s policy changes, First Solar has been a proponent of higher trade barriers to imported silicon-based solar products in the US. It has been part of a consortium of companies that brought antidumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) cases against solar cells and modules from Southeast Asia and India, and has sought wide-ranging restrictions on the production of tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) products in the US.
