In a battle of major modeling agencies over the alleged stealing of talent, a state appeals court has ruled that one agency that had been barred from soliciting the other’s models—after being accused of causing the “mass exodus” of 55 models—is no longer restrained by a temporary injunction.

The agency that has won the lifting of the preliminary injunction, Elite Model Management, has argued in court papers that only about a dozen of the fashion models who departed last spring and summer from Men Women N.Y. Model Management landed at its agency, and that Men Women N.Y. is “in free fall” because of “self-inflicted wounds.”