Commerce Right to Find Composite Tile Not Subject to Ceramic Tile AD/CVD, US Says
The U.S. defended Sept. 9 the Commerce Department’s flipped position, on a second remand, regarding the application of antidumping and countervailing duties to exporter Elysium Tiles’ composite tiles (Elysium Tiles v. United States, CIT # 23-00041).
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After the department determined Elysium’s tiles were out of scope of AD/CVD on Chinese-origin ceramic tile (see 2506090059), petitioner Coalition for Fair Trade in Ceramic Tile pushed back, arguing Commerce made several errors in its analysis of the disputed products’ (k)(2) factors. But the petitioner’s problems were just with how Commerce weighed the factors, the U.S. said.
The case’s remaining claim concerns the classification of Elysium’s composite tiles, which are made of ceramic and have marble top layers. The tiles are more than 3.2 cm thick. The AD/CVD orders, meanwhile, cover ceramic tiles that are less than 3.2 cm in “actual thickness,” but include tiles with decorative elements that cause them to exceed 3.2 cm “in spots.”
Initially and in its first remand redetermination, Commerce held that the marble layer on Elysium’s tiles was a decorative element. Restani sent the decisions back both times, the second time ordering Commerce to conduct a (k)(2) analysis because she found the term “decorative” wasn’t unambiguous enough to be dispositive (see 2407180023 and 2503110034). In its second remand, Commerce ruled Elysium’s tiles weren’t in scope.
The remand followed “the road map set out by the court” and was based on substantial evidence, the U.S. said Sept. 9.
It said Commerce considered that, for example, “the porcelain tile makes up most of the composite tile and imbues the composite tile as a whole with some of the same physical characteristics as ceramic tile.” It just weighed that with the rest of the evidence on the record to reach its conclusion, the government said.
The U.S. also claimed the Coalition failed to exhaust several arguments. The petitioner argued that Commerce had been wrong to explain that “ceramic and marble have different chemical and physical properties,” and it claimed the department contradicted itself regarding the tiles’ marble layer’s ability to reduce breakage. It should have raised those points after the draft remand redetermination was released, the government said.
And it said Commerce had legitimately used evidence from Elysium that its end users ultimately expected “tile with the look and feel of marble.” It added that the petitioner was misunderstanding Commerce’s finding that all tile -- not just ceramic tile -- has a similar end use, requiring the department to instead concentrate on “the expectations of the ultimate users regarding interacting, seeing, and feeling a natural stone surface as opposed to a ceramic tile.”
It also acknowledged the petitioner had submitted photographs to support a claim that other ceramic tile could look like stone, and, thus, ceramic and composite tile were part of the same market. But the department relied on more than the products’ appearance in its analysis, it said.