Fortescue chairman Andrew Forrest has defended the company’s legal pursuit of three former executives over an alleged intellectual property breach, saying anyone attempting to snatch the company’s technology will face the full weight of the law.

Fortescue launched Federal Court action in June against Michael Masterman, Bart Kolodziejczyk and Bjorn Winther-Jensen after alleging they had taken intellectual property from Fortescue’s work into “green iron” and attempted to commercialise it through their start-up Element Zero.