A law firm took to the Web Thursday to deny claims that its lawyers have been working for 10 disposable polystyrene tableware firms to lift a 14-year ban on the products, just days after the country's top economic planner announced the ban will be lifted starting in May.

A post widely circulated on the Web Thursday showed an image of a contract signed on January 12, 2012 between 10 disposable polystyrene tableware companies in South China's Guangdong Province and Beijing-based JunZeJun Law Offices, agreeing to pay 4.5 million yuan in total to the lawyers if they succeeded in getting the ban lifted by communicating with government authorities.

The post triggered speculation on the relationship between the contract and the recent move by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) to exclude polystyrene tableware from a list of banned products which have been prohibited due to "white pollution" since 1999.

"We are aware of the report. It is not fact. Our law firm and employees have been committed to national regulations and professional ethics," Wang Bing, a director of JunZeJun Law Offices, told the Global Times Thursday.

All 10 firms were either unreachable or unwilling to comment on the post Thursday, and one firm said that they make high-quality products which are exported to Hong Kong and Southeast Asian countries.

An anonymous staff member at the NDRC told the Global Times via telephone Thursday that the commission will soon publish detailed information about the lifted ban on its website due to continuous inquiries from reporters, but would not comment further.

The NDRC said on February 16 that the products will be legal for use as early as May 1 this year. It explained the reasons for the lift Wednesday, saying that "the tableware is proven safe, it can be recycled and it is used in many developed countries."

Five industry associations also held a meeting Wednesday to support the lift, saying that disposable polystyrene makes safe and green containers.

The meeting said the country will work quickly on quality supervision measures as well as ways to manage the industry and its recycling.

The 10 firms, mostly large in scale, want to legalize their products and expand their production, Dong Jinshi, secretary-general of the International Food Packaging Association, told the Global Times Thursday.

Despite 14 years of prohibition, the market has been filled with polystyrene products. The overall disposable tableware market in China was worth around 50 billion yuan in 2012, with polystyrene representing 7-8 billion yuan, indicating that there is demand for such products, according to Dong.

"However, the products should first meet requirements for food safety and environmental protection," Dong said.