The families of three telecommunications engineers who were kidnapped, held hostage for ransom and later executed and beheaded in Chechnya will go to the high court today to seek more than ￡1m in compensation from their former employers.

The families of Darren Hickey, Rudi Petschi and Stan Shaw allege that Granger Telecom of Weybridge, Surrey, was grossly negligent in sending the men to Grozny, capital of the war-torn breakaway Soviet republic, in September 1998.

Mr Hickey, 26, from Thames Ditton, Surrey, Mr Petschi, 42, from Cullompton, Devon, and New Zealander Mr Shaw, 58, had been sent by Granger to install a radio telephone system throughout the republic under a contract potentially worth $300m (￡183m).

The men were kidnapped from their house in Grozny on October 3 1998 along with a fourth engineer, Peter Kennedy, 46, from Hereford, who was working for British Telecom. His family are not involved in the high court case.

A spokesman for Collyer Bristow, solicitors for the families of the three Granger employees, said: "The four men were held hostage in appalling conditions for at least 64 days, during which time they were beaten, tortured, starved, forced to watch video films of the beheading of other hostages and to falsely confess on video by their torturers that they were in Chechnya to spy for the west."

Telephone negotiations between the kidnappers and Granger Telecom failed to secure their release, and the four men were beheaded after a failed rescue attempt by the Chechen security services. Their heads were left by the roadside and their bodies were recovered three weeks later. An investigation at the time surmised that the four were the victims of "warring mercenary factions".

It later emerged that the Foreign Office had been notified that a rescue attempt was to be made but because the message was received on a Sunday no one read it until the following morning, by which time it was too late. The families believe pressure could have been put on the Russian and Chechen authorities to abandon the rescue attempt had the warning been read. The solicitors added: "The families allege that Granger's action in sending the men to what was, and still is, widely recognised as one of the most dangerous places in the world for westerners was, in the circumstances, grossly negligent."

The high court hearing, scheduled to last seven days, follows an unsuccessful attempt by the families to persuade Granger and its insurers, Royal and Sun Alliance, to agree to an out-of-court settlement.