CIT Rejects Petitioner's Bid to Add Procedural Demands on Commerce in AD Review

Judge Joseph Laroski rejected claims from petitioner Lumimove, doing business as WPC Technologies, that Commerce should have asked Habich different questions during the review, finding that the agency conducted a reasonable review of both the affiliation and normal value points.

On the affiliation point, WPC said three sources of law require Commerce to improve on the investigation it conducted on the relationship between Habich and the sales agent, referred to by CIT as "Company X."

First, the petitioner pointed to the agency's duty of "diligent inquiry," in which Commerce must supposedly "investigate allegations presented by interested parties that raise a doubt about a material issue" and "make questionnaire questions affected by affiliation issues clear." Next, WPC said Commerce neglected a separate "administrative law duty" to respond to comments in which the petitioner had raised "areas of additional investigation." Lastly, WPC said that while Commerce lacks any power to gather information from others, the agency should have used questionnaires, and facts available, to get more information out of Habich and Company X.

Laroski said these three claims essentially all say that "Commerce should have asked Habich different questions." But even taking the three claims as given, the judge held that "WPC’s assertions fail to materially undermine Commerce’s investigation."

Regarding the alleged duty of diligent inquiry, Laroski said the petitioner "fails to persuade the court that any such duty has been violated or unfulfilled," adding that "Commerce's investigative work here passes muster." The judge said the "questionnaire and verification phases" of the review "were extensive, iterative, and responsive to WPC's comments." Laroski added that the "diligence principle" claimed by WPC is "little more than dicta, with WPC offering no clear citations to caselaw or administrative determinations by Commerce that should drive this court’s reasoning as to the level of diligence required here."

As for the "administrative law duty" claimed by the petitioner, Laroski said "this contention, too, strains credulity." WPC didn't meaningfully explain how the "specific terms Commerce did not further explore qualify as legally important such that further consideration was necessary." The judge added that the petitioner failed to engage with how the agency "grounded its investigation and its analysis in applicable legal principles and considered carefully statutory language, regulatory language," the court's past decisions and "past practice."

Laroski added that WPC's claim related to "Commerce's unique position as the investigator in administrative reviews is similarly abstract and unpersuasive." The judge said the petitioner's claim is "inconsistent," since on one hand, it claims it has no power to get information from Habich, yet it also recognizes Commerce "has no independent duty to make a diligent inquiry into any and all information highlighted by interested parties."

The court said "WPC stumbles both in establishing that Commerce is required to do more than it did here and in self-identifying as helpless in the face of questionnaire responses from Habich that describe an industry and market with which WPC is directly familiar." Commerce sent an "extensive list of questions" to the respondent, and the agency visited the respondent in-person to verify its answers -- "each step indicating a diligent inquiry and a remand process." Laroski held that to "demand more, on this record, is to mischaracterize the law."

As for Commerce's selection of Habich's Mexican sales to calculate normal value, WPC said Commerce should have used constructed value. The petitioner argued that Commerce ignored evidence suggesting Habich's sales to Mexico weren't made in the "ordinary course of trade"; the agency "unduly relied upon the fact that WPC had raised similar arguments" in past reviews; and Commerce misinterpreted its regulations by referring to the "examples" found in its regulations concerning the factors to address in examining control as "criteria," thus giving an "illustrative list undue weight in its analysis."

On the claim the Mexican sales weren't made in the ordinary course of trade, Laroski said WPC failed to "root its argument regarding the market realities of Mexico in relevant citations to record evidence, this court’s decisions, or past practice by Commerce." The petitioner instead fixated on the "global nature of Habich's business and the fact that the Mexican market" for Austrian strontium chromate is "closely related to the U.S. market." Yet this ignores that Commerce based its normal value analysis in evidence, which WPC failed to rebut, and the relevant legal standard of whether the goods sold in Mexico were done in the ordinary course of trade.

For WPC's second point, the petitioner picked a single line from Commerce's final decision memorandum to suggest the agency was biased. Laroski said the petitioner's reading of this line "is neither the only interpretation of Commerce’s discussion nor the most sensible one." Contrary to WPC's claims, Commerce merely acknowledged the claims the petitioner's making regarding normal value are similar to those it has made in prior reviews, and held that the petitioner "still failed to overcome the record evidence."

On the last point, regarding Commerce's regulations regarding control, WPC said the word Commerce used to describe the "illustrative list" in its regulations, "criteria," is "materially different from the word" in the regulation itself, which is "example." Laroski held that the petitioner offered "no dictionary definitions or legal principles" contradicting the fact that these two words "are neither mutually exclusive nor sufficiently different to render Commerce’s legal analysis flawed."

(Lumimove, d/b/a WPC Technologies v. United States, Slip Op. 25-142, CIT # 24-00105, dated 10/29/25; Judge: Joseph Laroski; Attorneys: Joseph Diedrich of Husch Blackwell for plaintiff Lumimove; Collin Mathias for defendant U.S. government; Frederike Gorgens of Greenberg Traurig for defendant-intervenor Habich GmbH)