The competition from Chinese firms

Coronation Street actors including Brooke Vincent, who plays Sophie Webster, are said to have been covertly filmed receiving beauty products from a fictitious cosmetics firm set up by Dispatches. Some of the TV stars later tweeted about the products, which included bogus "mystique spray" and a bottle of toner that contained only water.

Earlier this month ITV threatened to sue Channel 4 over suggestions that the actors received free gifts or engaged in any "unlawful marketing promotion", claims the broadcaster has denied.

It is understood that Coronation Street actors feature heavily in the current version of the programme despite the legal threats, Double sided nonwoven tape Products which were made after a number of "right to reply" letters were sent to individuals who appear in the film.

The current affairs documentary set up a fake cosmetics firm Puttana Aziendale – which translates from Italian as "corporate whore" – to sting the TV stars at an event called Celebrity Retreat in a Manchester hotel.

Coronation Street stars – including Vincent and Catherine Tyldesley, who plays Eva Price – were pictured in the Daily Mirror earlier this month posing with Puttana Aziendale shopping bags. The Advertising Standards Authority states that individuals endorsing products on Twitter should make it clear using symbols "#spons" or "#ad".

The show's official billing, published on Wednesday, said: "In this one-hour special Channel 4 Dispatches goes undercover to investigate what's real and what's fake in the brave new world of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

"Celebrities have considerable influence on social media. But are some less than transparent when tweeting brand names with their legions of fans?

"Dispatches exposes the new tricks used by marketeers to plug brands, from buying fake Facebook 'likes' and YouTube 'views' to influencing social media conversations."

The Dispatches film has been produced and directed by Chris Atkins, the film-maker behind the 2009 documentary Starsuckers that hoaxed several tabloid newspapers with fake celebrity stories. Atkins is working with independent producer Matchlight on the documentary.

Hanergy Holding Group Ltd., the Chinese clean-power producer, acquired the U.S. photovoltaic manufacturer Global Solar Energy Inc. for an undisclosed amount, its third purchase in a year of a thin-film panel maker.

Global Solar joins Miasole Inc., which Hanergy purchased in January, and the Q-Cells SE Solibro unit it acquired in September, the Beijing-based company said yesterday in a statement on its website. They all make thin-film panels using copper indium gallium selenide.

Hanergy is seeking to become a more significant supplier in the solar-panel market while avoiding the commoditized silicon-based products that have plunged in value as global production capacity exceeds demand, said Dan Ries, an analyst at Maxim Group LLC in New York.

The deal follows its purchases last year of Silicon Valley start-up MiaSole and of Solibro, a unit of insolvent German solar group Q-Cells, and will allow Hanergy to "accelerate the development and large-scale application" of thin-film modules, Hanergy Chairman Li Hejun said in a statement on Thursday.

Global Solar, based in Tucson, Arizona, specialises in making solar cells with copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) technology. The thin-film products, which are lighter than traditional crystalline silicon modules, are applied in integrated and rooftop solar projects, electronic vehicles and portable solar products.

"Global Solar has run into some financial difficulties, and Hanergy bought it for its technology at a reasonable price," a source with knowledge of the matter said. The person declined to be identified because he was not authorised to comment to the media on the financial health of the target.

Li said Global Solar would continue operations in the United States.

China has become the world's largest solar panel maker and the dominant supplier to solar power industry. Hanergy, a private renewable energy producer, controls Hong Kong-listed Hanergy Solar and employs more than 8,000 people.

The competition from Chinese firms has forced some European and U.S. solar panel makers to go bust in the past few years.

The Global Solar deal is the latest rescue of a U.S. solar startup by a larger Asian industrial manufacturer. HelioVolt and Ascent Solar Technologies Inc have sold stakes to South Korean conglomerate SK Group and China's TFG Radiant Group, respectively.

MiaSole, which raised hundreds of millions of dollars as one of Silicon Valley's hottest cleantech startups, was sold to Hanergy for $30 million, a source familiar with the matter said in October 2012.

Both the United States and European Union accuse Chinese panel makers of receiving state subsidies and dumping their panels below costs, posing unfair competition.

Washington last year imposed anti-dumping duties on solar cells imported from China. The European Commission is taking similar action and will decide on Aug. 6 on whether to slap punitive tariffs on Chinese solar panels.

China announced this month that it aims to more than quadruple solar power generating capacity to 35 gigawatts by 2015 in an apparent bid to ease a massive glut in the domestic solar panel industry caused by a collapse in overseas demand.

Beijing also said it would promote the development of high-efficiency thin-film solar panels.

Such panels, analysts say, are less efficient in converting sunlight into power but are lighter and potentially cheaper than crystalline silicon modules, the core products of most Chinese solar panel makers such as LDK and Yingli.

Hanergy said it completed the acquisition of Global Solar after winning approvals from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and China's National Development and Reform Commission.
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