Another company versus journalist situation appeared as Foxconn filled a lawsuit against two Chinese reporters.

The reason for the lawsuit is that the two reporters wrote about the poor working conditions at Foxconn. Their article was posted in The China Business News, a newspaper which is distributed widely within mainland China.

Foxconn’s Shenzhen factory appeared on the news several weeks ago saying that the manufacturing giant made its employees work extreme overtime hours and were paid bare minimum wages.

Foxconn’s Shenzhen factory was producing iPod components which forced Apple to launch an investigation about these reports. Apple was claiming that it has no tolerance for partners and suppliers who treat their employees poorly but in the end it turned out that it was just talks.

During the investigation, Apple found out that the factory was having serious problems regarding three chapters:

• Employee treatment
• Working and living conditions
• Excessive working hours

A large number of employees also appeared to be working an excessive number of hours, working a total of 35% over Apple’s recommended hours per week maximum which is 60 hours. Some employees were also found to have been treated poorly, with some being “punished” by being forced to “stand at attention.”

Still, Apple said that will continue to work with Foxconn because they are trying to solve the problems. (could it be different?)

Still, Foxconn felt its reputation damaged and the two journalists, Wang You and Weng Bao, are being sued by Foxconn for roughly $3.77 million USD which is the largest claim of its kind in the country.

The China Business News said that it will defend its employees. The news organization said it “stands firmly behind its journalists and will bear all possible consequences in this case.”

Perhaps this will be another case for Electronic Frontier Foundation who is preparing to battle AOL for the released search logs.