WTO Rules Against Ontario's FIT Program

As an update to our first news release found here, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has officially announced its ruling on the domestic content requirements of Ontario's Feed-In Tarriff (FIT) program. Much like the interim report, the final ruling finds that the FIT program violates the WTO rules that forbid treating domestic suppliers and products differently from foreign ones.

To quickly summarize the claim, the EU and Japan first appealed to the WTO in 2011 claiming that the FIT program violated three WTO conventions: General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT); Trade-Related Investment Measures Agreement (TRIM); and the Subsidies and Countervailing Measures Agreement (SCM). As outlined in the WTO's 160 page decision, the three member panel has found that the FIT program discriminates against foreign suppliers of equipment and components for renewable energy facilities under GATT and TRIM, but not under SCM.