US Mattress Makers Challenge Exclusion of Exporter's Goods Under AD Order's Exclusions

A group of U.S. mattress makers led by Brooklyn Bedding filed a complaint at the Court of International Trade on Feb. 5 challenging the Commerce Department's decision to find exporter PT Ecos Jaya Indonesia's tri-folding mattresses were not within the scope of the antidumping duty order on mattresses from Indonesia (Brooklyn Bedding v. United States, CIT # 24-00002).

Challenging the 2020-22 review of the AD order, Brooklyn Bedding said that since Commerce found tri-folding mattresses to be in-scope merchandise in the underlying AD investigation, the agency's decision to exclude Ecos' tri-folding mattresses, and not account for the mattresses in its rate calculations for the review, was unsupported. Meanwhile, Ecos argued that its tri-folding mattresses meet the exclusion for mattress "topper" products set in the AD order.

During the review, the AD petitioners said that Ecos' tri-folding mattresses "met the definition of a mattress, were identified" in the company's product catalog as mattresses, weren't marketed as a supplement to mattresses and "were nearly identical to tri-folding mattresses that the Department had previously found to be in-scope."

Commerce, in its preliminary results, didn't address the claim that Ecos failed to report significant sales of tri-folding mattresses. Following a hearing on the issue, the agency eventually said that the tri-folding mattresses met the "topper" exclusion.

Brooklyn Bedding also challenged Commerce's finding that Ecos' foam mattress floor sofas satisfied the exclusion in the AD order for "multifunctional furniture." In the review, the petitioners said these products don't qualify for the exclusion since the "product was simply a foldable mattress and was not integrated into the design and construction of, and inseparable from, any furniture frame (one of the three requirements of the multifunctional furniture exclusion)."

Again, Commerce didn't address the issue in its preliminary results but said in the final determination that the goods met the exclusion. The petitioners said this finding was wrong since Ecos' "foam mattress floor sofa does not have any furniture framing."