HOUSTON, June 15 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Accounting firm Arthur Andersen, found guilty Saturday of having obstructed justice, said in a statement shortly after the verdict that it would appeal once sentencing was handed down in October, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.

In a statement, Andersen attorneys said they would appeal the conviction, reached after nearly 10 days of deliberations by a 12-member jury, "based on flawed jury instructions and erroneous evidentiary rulings that precluded Andersen from presenting its entire defense."

Defense attorney Rusty Hardin said his team would lodge its appeal on October 11, after the sentencing.

Andersen's is the first criminal conviction stemming from the bankruptcy debacle that brought energy giant Enron to its knees.

A jury convicted Saturday the Arthur Andersen LLP accounting firm of obstructing an official probe of its former client Enron Corporation by destroying masses of paperwork late last year.

The 12-member jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict after almost 10 days of deliberations in the case, the first to stem from the collapse of the Houston energy trader, AFP reported.

Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson said in a statement he was "extremely gratified" by the verdict.

The outcome of the trial confirmed "that Andersen knew well that these documents were relevant to the inquiries into Enron's collapse and that Andersen partners and employees personally directed these efforts to destroy evidence," he said.

Legal experts said the verdict would accelerate the disintegration of the once highly respected Big Five accounting firm.

"It will accelerate the unraveling of Andersen," said Neil McCabe, a law professor at South Texas College of Law in Houston, predicting that individual states would revoke the firm's license and more clients would abandon the company.

"Arthur Andersen is a criminal. You cannot have a felon operating with a license as a matter of law in most jurisdictions," said McCabe.

The company has lost close to 600 audit clients in the past three months alone, according to an analysis by The Chicago Tribune.

Its U.S. payroll of 28,000 employees has shrunk to 10,000 in recent months, and its fee base has shrunk by as much as one billion dollars, as it hemorrhaged clients, according to the daily.

According to AFP, the destruction of the whole firm over the indictment has caused a great deal of controversy, and Andersen defense attorney Rusty Hardin raised that point again Saturday, ripping into the government's decision to go after Andersen over the Enron affair.

He blasted it as a "foolish" use of official resources, which sent the wrong message to the business community.

The decision to prosecute Andersen "tremendously inhibits future corporations from co-operating with the government," he told reporters.

The federal prosecution of Andersen is widely seen as a precursor to its indictment of Houston-based energy trader Enron Corp., which went bust in December 2001 after it emerged that it had hidden millions of dollars in liabilities in off-balance-sheet partnerships with the blessing of its auditor.