The judges said that the BGS had made clear from the outset that it had not conducted arsenic tests.

BBC: Millions of Bangladeshis may be drinking unsafe water

His lawyers argued that the British Geological Survey (BGS) failed to detect arsenic when it conducted tests on water from deep wells in the 1980s and 1990s.

BBC: Millions of Bangladeshis may be drinking unsafe water

Researchers at the BGS hope that by making geological surveys global, they can encourage "big science" - research that no one country or geological survey could do on its own.

BBC: Geological mapping gets joined up

But the panel of five judges at the House of Lords - the highest court in England - all agreed that there was no duty on the BGS to test for arsenic.

BBC: Millions of Bangladeshis may be drinking unsafe water

The work builds on previous surveys established by the British Geological Survey (BGS), which has shown that the present-day landscape of this region has been strongly shaped by Quaternary glaciation particularly over the past 500, 000 years.

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