A Delaware bankruptcy judge on Tuesday granted the Tribune Co. more time to submit a Chapter 11 reorganization plan.

Judge Kevin Carey agreed to extend the period under which Tribune has exclusive rights to file a plan to Feb. 28, with the possibility of a further extension after a mid-February hearing.

Tribune said in its request for an extension that many of the elements of a reorganization plan are in place, but that it needs more time to review issues surrounding the leveraged buyout that took the company private in 2007. The $8.2 billion buyout, which saddled Tribune with massive debt and which some Tribune creditors point to as the root cause of its bankruptcy, is being reviewed by the company, its creditors committee and other parties.

In requesting a third extension of the exclusivity period, Tribune said its goal is to deal with any potential claims stemming from the buyout in its reorganization plan.

But a group of credit agreement lenders who hold more than $4 billion in Tribune debt objected to another extension of time and asked for permission to submit their own reorganization plan focused on Tribune subsidiaries.

Bruce Bennett, an attorney for the credit lenders, said all of Tribune's business operations are being conducted by the parent company's subsidiaries. He argued that the lenders' reorganization plan would free Tribune's subsidiaries from the constraints of bankruptcy, leaving the parent company on its own to resolve issues surrounding the buyout. Tribune has said litigation related to buyout could have an adverse effect on its businesses, he noted.

"The press articles will talk about how the cases are mired in litigation of uncertain duration ... and the debtors and all their subsidiaries will be held hostage to it," Bennett said.

But Carey indicated that Tribune deserves the opportunity to reach a global resolution of claims that involves both the parent company and its subsidiaries. He agreed with Tribune attorneys that the company is highly integrated and said he saw no benefit in "breaking up the corporate family."

But while granting the time extension, Carey agreed to only three months, not the four months the company requested.

Graeme Bush, an attorney hired by the creditors committee to investigate the leveraged buyout, said document production has been proceeding well, but that the committee is still waiting for Merrill Lynch, one of the LBO lenders, to turn over e-mails.

Madlyn Gleich Primoff, an attorney for Merrill Lynch, said the company has not been dragging its feet but was presented with a burdensome request that resulted in the identification of more than 330,000 documents.