New York: Arthur Andersen, collapsed energy giant Enron's accounting firm accused of questionable practices, has decided it would not plead guilty to charges of obstruction of justice in Enron's case even as talks about its possible sale stumbled badly after two rivals cut off merger negotiations.

The company's lawyers have delivered a letter to the US Justice Department assailing the planned charges as "gross abuse of governmental power," the 'New York Times' on March 13 said.

The decision, which signals a new resolve, was taken by the senior executives even as talks about its possible sale collapsed, reports said.

Within hours, on March 13, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and Ernst & Young separately announced that they were not interested in buying any of the assets of Andersen citing concerns about the liabilities it faced from the Enron debacle, it said.

The aggressive posture was taken just hours before the government imposed a deadline in which Andersen had the choice of pleading guilty or risking indictment, the paper said.

Separately officials from the Securities and Exchange Commission have begun discussing contingency plans with the rest of the Big Five accounting firms on how to handle a possible collapse of Andersen.

Such a collapse, if it occurred, would require a virtually simultaneous transfer of auditors by almost 20 per cent of the publicly traded companies in the US, it said.

PTI