A group of creditors from the Tribune Media Co.’s 2008 bankruptcy cannot recover money paid to the defunct firm’s investors in leveraged buyout before the company filed for Chapter 11 protection in Delaware, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled Thursday.

A three-judge panel of the Manhattan-based appeals court said that the creditors’ state law claims for constructive fraudulent conveyance were preempted by a provision of U.S. bankruptcy law, which protects certain transactions involving securities contracts.