Updated September 07, 2017 17:15:30

Photo: Bruce Gordon manages to delay Ten's second creditors' meeting by a week. (AAP: Lee Besford)

Bruce Gordon has successfully delayed a key creditors meeting as part of a last-ditch attempt to thwart the sale of the Ten Network to CBS.

The second creditors' meeting will now occur on September 19 — one week later than what Ten's administrator KordaMentha had originally planned.

Mr Gordon's WIN Corporation and Birketu filed an urgent application in the Supreme Court of NSW on Wednesday to prevent the meeting from going ahead next week, due to alleged deficiencies in the second creditors' report.

So urgent was this application that Justice Ashley Black, and the barristers for CBS and the administrators, had not even received WIN's "revised outline of submissions" until the first few minutes of the Thursday court hearing.

One of the alleged deficiencies is that the administrator failed to provide sufficient reasons why it supports CBS's takeover proposal.

Another argument will be whether the administrators should have considered selling Ten to Mr Gordon and Lachlan Murdoch prior to its collapse.

These substantive arguments will be heard in court next week on September 12 and 13 (next Tuesday and Wednesday).

Messrs Gordon and Murdoch were the front-runners to take over Ten, and were waiting for the Federal Government to amend media ownership laws, which would have allowed a deal to proceed.

However, with CBS being Ten's most likely future owner, the billionaire investors have become the "disappointed underbidders".

Richard McHugh SC, representing the administrator, argued in court that the "disappointed underbidders" should have filed their application "weeks or months ago".

"They shouldn't be given a free run to advance their commercial interest."

Justice Black told the parties that their case involved "significant complexities", and noted the short time between the second hearing day (September 13) and the rescheduled creditors' meeting (September 19).

However, he will not be hearing the case next week, and there is a risk that the case might not be resolved in six days.

"Whichever judge hears the matter next week will have to do the best he or she can," he said.

Topics: courts-and-trials, law-crime-and-justice, business-economics-and-finance, company-news, australia

First posted September 07, 2017 16:59:33