US Asks for Remand of AD Review After Mattress Exporters Allege Calculation Error

In response to attacks from multiple sides, the U.S. asked the Court of International Trade on Aug. 7 to remand the results of its first antidumping duty review on Indonesian mattresses so that it could look into a calculation error alleged by exporters (PT Ecos Jaya Indonesia v. U.S., CIT # 24-00001).

Otherwise, the government’s brief opposed another motion for judgment filed by petitioners led by Brooklyn Bedding, which argued that some of the products of respondents Eco and Grantec didn’t meet the requirements for exclusions carved out for “mattress toppers” and “foam mattress floor sofas.”

The government asked for the remand to give it a chance to reconsider its exclusion of investment-related items from surrogate Masterfoam Industries’ profit ratio without excluding them from the COGS denominator of the surrogate’s profit and selling expense ratio. It said it also would be reviewing its decision to use the financial statements of the other surrogate, Kurlon Enterprise, to construct the exporters’ value, selling expenses and export price profit.

Though it requested the remand to look into the claims of the exporters, led by PT Ecos Jaya Indonesia, it pushed back against those raised by Brooklyn Bedding.

First, it said, “substantial evidence” supports the Commerce Department’s finding that certain of the respondents’ products fit into the orders’ exclusion of “multifunctional furniture.” Brooklyn Bedding’s sole argument was that the floor mattresses don’t have any furniture framing, it said. But the mattresses’ brochures “showed that the unit itself serves as both mattress and frame and there is no need for separate furniture framing,” it said.

It said that the multifunctional furniture exclusion has three criteria: A product under it must be must convert from seating to sleeping, that conversion must occur “where that [product’s] filler material or components are upholstered,” and the outer layer of the product must be what converts into the sleeping surface. Because the respondents’ floor sofa met all three criteria, they were excluded from the order, it said.

The government also defended Commerce’s decision to exclude another type of Eco’s and Grantec’s products from the order by allowing them to be entered as “mattress toppers.” The orders defined mattress toppers as removable products with heights of 4 inches or less, it said.

Neither respondent’s models were more than 4 inches tall, it said. And, it said, Eco’s and Grantec’s products were advertised as portable, able to be “stored in a closet or under the bed when not in use,” which meant they were “clearly ‘removable.’”

Brooklyn Bedding argued that the respondents marketed the products as serving the functions of both mattress toppers and mattresses on their own, but “there is no caveat to the topper scope exception stating that toppers that can be used as mattresses fall within the scope of the order,” it said.

And, the U.S. noted, as the department hadn’t required the respondents to report U.S. sales of either product type, application of adverse facts available for the omission was meritless -- despite Brooklyn Bedding’s claim otherwise.