The High Court has granted a group of companies controlled by developer Liam Carroll leave to apply for examinership to seek the court's protection from creditors.
Mr Justice John Cooke deferred setting a date for the hearing and formally issuing his detailed reasons until Monday morning.
ACC Bank has been seeking to have the companies wound up over unpaid debts of €136 million.
The Carroll group introduced a business plan and additional property valuations as part of this second application.
There is no guarantee, however, that the court will agree that the group has any reasonable prospect of survival, which is a necessary condition of examinership.
Co-directors of the Carroll group, David Torpey and John Pope, looked visibly relieved when the court made its decision but made no comment afterwards.
Earlier, the second application from the companies was described in court as 'extraordinary and unprecedented in the history of corporate litigation'.
Lyndon McCann SC, acting for ACC Bank, said a 'tactical and strategic decision' had been taken by the Carroll group to withhold evidence relating to its business plan and property valuations on the first petition for examinership.
He described this as a 'bad decision', and said the attempt to introduce the previously withheld business plan was 'an abuse of the process of the Court'. He also described the content of the letters from the financial institutions as 'frankly, pathetic'.
Seven companies controlled by Mr Carroll yesterday resumed their fresh bid for High Court protection.
Vantive Holdings, Morston Investment and five other businesses were seeking permission from the Court to have a fresh petition for the appointment of an examiner be allowed go to full hearing.
The court reluctantly accepted the lodging of the petition at an eleventh hour hearing last Friday night. Last week, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by six of the companies against a High Court decision not to appoint an examiner to them.
