US Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday blocked a district court’s temporary restraining order (TRO) that implemented a midnight deadline to release over a billion US dollars in funding for the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

The TRO had originally been granted by Judge Amir Ali from the US District Court for the District of Columbia and was the result of an ongoing lawsuit between Aids Vaccine Advocacy Coalition and the US State Department. Global Health Council and US President Donald Trump are additional plaintiffs and defendants to the action, respectively.

The litigation stems from Trump administration Executive Order 14169, which seeks to end foreign aid that is “disbursed in a manner that is not fully aligned with the foreign policy of the President of the United States.” Around 230 contracts and grants were terminated shortly after litigation against the order commenced according to evidence presented by the State Department.

Plaintiffs suing for relief from the executive order argued that the action would have a “catastrophic effect” on humanitarian missions and on the businesses involved with them. Organizations receiving funding would be forced to cease many core operation, furlough workers, and in some cases terminate operations entirely.

The district court had found that the plaintiffs had met the legal bar of “irreparable harm” required for a TRO because of the immediate harm that the government’s termination of the funding would create. The court further ruled that the plaintiffs had shown a likelihood to succeed on the merits of the underlying action which challenged the legality of the executive order as illegal under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) and the US Constitution.

Specifically referring to the APA argument, the lower court wrote that plaintiffs had “shown that implementation of the blanket suspension is likely arbitrary and capricious given the apparent failure to consider immense reliance interests…among businesses and other organizations across the country.” A subsequent order had set an expiration deadline for the TRO as March 10 and a deadline to release funding had been set for midnight on February 27 after the judge discovered funds had yet to be unfrozen.

Roberts’ order renders the deadline moot while setting a Friday deadline for the proponents of the TRO to respond.