DALLAS (Legal Newsline) — Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott on Sept. 19 filed a lawsuit and temporary restraining order against a Dallas-area solar panel facility and its owners for allegedly making deceptive claims about the company’s products.
1 SolTech Inc. and the company’s owners, Sandra Fardi and Hossein Fardi, allegedly claimed the company’s products were produced in the U.S. However, the panels were manufactured by a Chinese company and imported from China, Abbott said.
The Fardis co-founded 1 SolTech in 2008 as a domestic manufacturer of commercial and residential solar panels.
After less expensive Chinese-manufactured panels started to dominate the market, the defendants allegedly started to order and import solar panels made in China.
The defendants then allegedly put their label on the Chinese panels and shipped them to U.S. buyers without disclosing where the panels were from.
The Fardis also allegedly represented that their solar panels met the “buy American” provision of the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in bid proposals to furnish panels for projects with a “buy American” component.
The defendants bought $2 million worth of Chinese solar panels in the first half of 2013 and received its first shipment in the spring of 2013, according to the Attorney General’s Office.
In his lawsuit, Abbott alleges the defendants violated multiple provisions of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
The lawsuit seeks a temporary and permanent injunction, restitution and civil penalties for affected customers.