Dow Chemical said today that there was no basis to a BBC World report saying that it had accepted responsibility for India's Bhopal disaster.
The report claimed Dow had accepted full responsibility for the Bhopal disaster in India that killed more than 15,000 people had announced a $12 billion compensation package.
But the BBC now says the interview it ran with a man it identified as a company spokesman was part of "an elaborate deception".
"Dow confirms there was no basis whatsoever for this report," spokeswoman Ms Marina Ashanin told BBC World from Switzerland.
"We also confirm Jude Finisterra (the spokesman mentioned in the report) is neither an employee nor a spokesperson for Dow."
"The bottom-line is this is not true," a spokesman for Dow Chemical in Zurich told Reuters News Agency.
Meanwhile thousands of demonstrators are marking the anniversary of the world's worst industrial accident in the Indian city today with protests demanding justice for those still suffering.
A leak of 40 tonnes of poisonous gas from the Union Carbide pesticide plant on December 3rd, 1984, killed 15,000 and has affected more than 555,000 people, although the exact number of victims has never been clear.
Many died over the years due to gas-related illnesses, such as lung cancer, kidney failure and liver disease. Although millions of dollars in compensation has been set aside, much of the money has been tied up by bureaucratic and legal issues and many people have received little or nothing.
"For the last 20 years I've been visiting the hospital and government offices, begging for compensation to take care of my two children," said Ms Leelaben Aherwar, whose baby girl survived the gas leak but then began showing signs of mental and physical retardation.
Her son, born a few years later, suffers from similar problems. "The answer is always the same: 'The court will make a decision.' I don't know what court is this that cannot see our suffering," she said today.
Demonstrators are planning to march through the main streets of Bhopal, the capital of the state of Madhya Pradesh, before holding a public meeting outside the abandoned Union Carbide plant, demanding justice for hundreds of thousands of people still suffering in the aftermath