Chinese media protest Hon Hai suit

Chinese media protest Hon Hai suit
By Mure Dickie in Beijing

Published: August 30 2006 06:26 | Last updated: August 30 2006 06:26

Leading Chinese news editors on Tuesday protested a Rmb30m ($3.8m) libel suit
launched by a unit of Taiwanese electronics manufacturing giant Hon Hai against
two editorial staff at a local business daily.

A court in the southern city of Shenzhen has already frozen financial and other
assets held by the two employees of the China Business News following the filing
of the suit over a June story alleging excess overtime and other improper
practices at the Hon Hai unit.

While companies in China have often sued publications over reporting they
consider unfair, Hon Hai unit Foxconn's decision to target individual
journalists and the scale of the damages it is seeking have prompted an
unusually strong response from local media.

The case is also likely to fuel debate over working practices at Shenzhen-based
Foxconn, which is a major supplier of Apple Computer and other global
electronics brands.

The Foxconn lawsuit set a "dangerous precedent" and was an "outright challenge"
to the role of the media in Chinese society, Chen Tong, editor-in-chief of
Sina.com, the country's leading internet news portal, said in a statement on
Tuesday.

"The target of the suit is wrong and for the court to agree to accept it and to
freeze accounts and assets is to add wrong to wrong," said Wu Haimin, publisher
of the Beijing Times newspaper. "China's news industry should react; this kind
of thing cannot be permitted."

The China Business News itself on Monday denounced Foxconn?s decision to target
journalist Wang You and editor Weng Bao as "not in accordance with the law" and
said it was standing by its staff.

Foxconn on Tuesday confirmed the lawsuit against Ms Wang and Mr Weng, but
declined to comment on its decision to sue individuals rather than their
newspaper, or on its objections to the June report.

Ms Wang said she and the China Business News had yet to be given any details of
the content of the lawsuit and that it was unclear when any hearing into the
lawsuit might take place. "Right now, all we can do is wait," she said.

Officials of the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court declined to comment on the
case. Some legal analysts have complained in the past that Chinese courts tend
to favour powerful locally-based companies in legal proceedings.

The publicity surrounding the lawsuit is likely to add to international scrutiny
of Foxconn's working practices.

Apple, which uses the company to make iPod music players, said in a report this
month that it had found employees there worked longer hours than the 60 hours a
week permitted by its Code of Conduct, but that it had uncovered no evidence of
forced overtime.

In a statement issued after the Apple report, Foxconn acknowledged employees'
work hours might exceed "some guidance", but insisted that it provided a "better
than average" working environment and compensation package.

.

Quantcast