LAWYERS FOR developer Liam Carroll last night secured a last-minute reprieve for seven companies in his beleaguered Zoe group which owes €1.2 billion to its bankers.
Mr Justice Eamon de Valera permitted the presentation of a petition to appoint an examiner next Thursday which, if successful, will give the companies breathing space to organise their long-term survival.
Mr Carroll's companies gave an undertaking that they would take no measures to prejudice the position of ACC, which last week secured the appointment of a provisional liquidator to two Carroll companies and receivers to four others, before the hearing of the petition.
In a late night application to the High Court, Mr Carroll's legal team applied to seek the emergency appointment of an examiner to six companies that had featured in the original application and a seventh company Royceton.
Entering court just before 9.30pm, Michael Cush SC for the companies said that Mr Carroll has been hospitalised and was not in a position to give instructions in this application. However, the other two directors of the companies - David Torpey and John Pope - had passed resolutions approving the application for an examiner to be appointed.
The application was the second attempt to secure court protection after the High Court and Supreme Court rejected their survival plan.
Mr Cush told Mr Justice de Valera that the companies were providing two pieces of evidence in support of the application. This included letters of support from lenders to the Zoe development group with the exception of ACC.
AIB, Bank of Scotland (Ireland), KBC Bank Ireland and Bank of Ireland were supportive of the application. State-owned Anglo Irish Bank also had no objection and would advance companies €8 million for the development at North Wall in Dublin, the court heard.
The court was told that Bank of Scotland (Ireland) had advanced €50million to the companies since December 2008 when the companies presented a survival plan. Ulster Bank were neutral on whether it supported the application.
The second item of new evidence was detailed valuation reports from estate agents CBRE and Hooke & MacDonald on the future prospects for the properties.
Mr Justice de Valera said that this was all evidence that should have been provided to the High Court and the Supreme Court and that had not happened.
Mr Cush said that the companies could not have provided the evidence on the letters of support from the lenders. He acknowledged they could have provided the property valuation reports and had failed to do so. He asked that the valuation reports be kept confidential by the court.
The judge said the companies had had three days to make their application and they should have lodged the petition to the High Court's central office by 5pm yesterday which they had failed to do.
Accepting this, Mr Cush said the companies were seeking the judge's permission to accept the petition.
He said the companies had submitted "a considerably enhanced body of evidence" including a new independent accountant's report drafted by KPMG that was "more extensive" than a previous one and a report from the chief economist of Goodbody Stockbrokers, which shows a turnaround in the world economy in 2010 and in Ireland in 2011, and that this would back up the group's proposed survival plan.
The judge said that he had "serious reservations" about hearing a petition that had been considered and rejected by the High Court and the Supreme Court.
Declan Black, solicitor for the provisional liquidator Declan Taite, said that he was "not agitating any course of action".
Jane Marshall, solicitor for ACC, described as "vexatious" the fresh application.
She said that ACC would be prejudiced if the companies received court protection as they had been prevented from recovering loans of €136 million.