July 3 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp.’s battle with creditors over its reorganization neared an end yesterday, leaving it up to a bankruptcy judge to decide the fate of a plan to create a streamlined carmaker by selling its best assets to a group led by the U.S. Treasury.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Gerber in New York ended a hearing on the proposed sale without indicating when he would make a ruling. GM lawyer Stephen Karotkin told Gerber he planned to deliver a revised sale order, including changes to resolve objections, by tomorrow, for the judge to consider.

During the three-day hearing, GM sought to persuade Gerber that the sale to U.S. Treasury-funded Vehicle Acquisition Holdings LLC was the only choice available to the Detroit-based company other than liquidation.

Some GM bondholders, consumer claimants and unionized retirees who are losing their health benefits objected to the sale, saying that GM would be the same company stripped of many of its liabilities and that such a restructuring should be done with a Chapter 11 plan on which creditors could vote.

“Is it fair to say there are no alternatives to a sale where you deliberately limit your alternatives?” Michael Richman, an attorney for individual GM bondholders, asked Gerber.

Richman said the Obama administration, which already has loaned GM more than $27 billion, forced the company to seek a sale and wouldn’t let GM liquidate if Gerber rejected the deal. The judge should require a traditional reorganization plan to be filed, he said.

Government Deadline

Attorneys for the Treasury have said the government would rescind the $33 billion bankruptcy loan it has provided GM if Gerber hasn’t signed an order approving the sale by July 10.

The New York Times, citing unnamed people briefed on the matter, reported yesterday that GM and the government are prepared to close the sale by July 6 or July 7.

GM attorney Harvey Miller said the only alternative to a sale was liquidation, and if Gerber follows the decisions of his fellow judges in the second judicial circuit he must approve the sale.

A denial of the sale would be “catastrophic and irreversible,” he told Gerber. The objectors want to “play poker, or Russian roulette, with the government.”

GM is seeking approval of terms that would give the U.S. government 60 percent of the new GM for making $50 billion in bailout loans. A worker fund would get a 17.5 percent stake for giving up health-care benefits, and Canadian government entities would get 11.7 percent for their loans.

A 10 percent equity stake will go to the bankruptcy estate, which is supposed to be split among GM’s bondholders and other unsecured creditors.

The case is In re General Motors Corp., 09-50026, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).