NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Battered accounting firm Arthur Andersen, which is trying to fight a criminal indictment for its destruction of Enron Corp. documents, will make its first court appearance Wednesday.

Andersen attorneys in Houston will ask U.S. District Court Judge Calvin Botley for a trial to begin on the charges within the next 70 days. By law, every defendant is allowed a quick trial unless they waive that right, said Stanley Brand, an attorney for Andersen in Washington.

Andersen's appearance will be limited to entering a not guilty plea and various procedural issues. The firm's strategy is to have a jury hear its case as quickly as possible.

"We believe that when the jury hears [our case] they will not find the company guilty of having done anything," Brand said.

Chicago-based Andersen will not ask for a change a venue and the case will stay in Houston.

The Justice Department indicted Andersen last week for obstruction of justice related to the firm's shredding of Enron documents. In its indictment, Justice alleged that the accounting firm engaged in the wholesale destruction of documents, shredding literally "tons" of Enron Corp. documents, and purging volumes of information. On Oct. 23, Andersen began shredding documents even though it found out four days earlier about a Securities and Exchange Commission probe into Enron, the agency said.

However, the agency did not name or charge any individuals or Andersen partners in its indictment.

Andersen, Enron's auditor for 16 years, signed off on the energy trader's financial statements and later admitted to destroying Enron documents. However, the Chicago-based firm has attempted to place the blame primarily on fired partner David Duncan, who was in charge of the Enron engagement.

Houston-based Enron, which filed the largest bankruptcy in United States history last December, allegedly used off-the-books partnerships to inflate profits and hide nearly $1 billion in debt. Enron fired Andersen as its auditor in January.

Separately, Andersen, which failed to secure a merger partner last week, inched closer to a deal with rival KPMG in a transaction that will combine the firms' non-U.S. operations.

The merger, word of which officially surfaced Monday, would primarily combine the European operations of Andersen with KPMG. All of Andersen's non-U.S. member firms in 83 countries are actively participating in the negotiations, Andersen spokeswoman Anne Groves in the United Kingdom said.

Groves noted the transaction calls for Andersen, which has been in existence in the United States for 89 years, to drop its name outside the United States and assume KPMG's for the time being. The two firms are now conducting market research to come up with a new name for the combined firm in the future, Groves said.

The merger, which will seek to combine firms in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Canada, Asia and Latin America, is still in negotiations and would need the approval of KPMG partnerships in each country involved. KPMG has member firms in 151 countries, excluding the United States, a KPMG spokesman said.

"We are just about to go into due diligence," Groves said.

A spokesman for Andersen Worldwide SC, the Geneva, Switzerland-based umbrella organization for Andersen member firms, said the merger has received strong support from most Andersen units across the globe. However, not all firms have signed on.

"At the end of the day a couple or few member countries may elect to do something else," the spokesman said.

The Andersen units will remain part of Andersen Worldwide until Oct. 1 or until the agreement is final, Andersen said Monday. Arthur Andersen is the U.S. unit of Andersen Worldwide.

A combination of the two firms will also not involve a money exchange, Groves said. Andersen in the United Kingdom will likely spin out its consulting practice, since KPMG does not have a consulting unit in that country, the Andersen Worldwide spokesman said.

Currently, KPMG ranks as the third largest global accounting firm with $10.8 billion in 2001 revenue while Andersen places fourth with $9.2 billion revenue, according to Bowman's Accounting Report. If KPMG succeeds in buying Andersen's non-U.S. businesses, the combined firm will rank second worldwide with $16 billion in revenue. PricewaterhouseCoopers would remain the top firm.

Last week, the Justice Department charged Andersen with obstruction of justice for shredding Enron Corp. documents, the first indictment related to the collapse of the energy trading company. Andersen officials are scheduled to make an initial court appearance on the charges in Houston Wednesday at 10 a.m. (11 a.m. ET) before U.S. District Court Judge Calvin Botley.

The indictment for Andersen followed failed merger talks with Ernst & Young and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. Both firms opted out of negotiations last week. But now Deloitte Touche appears to be back in the running, and is exploring a deal to buy Andersen's U.S. tax and consulting business, the Wall Street Journal reported. However, Deloitte is not interested in Andersen's audit practice, the report said.

A Deloitte spokesman declined to comment.

Andersen in the United States could not be reached for comment.

Separately, Andersen did provide accounting advice on swap strategies for telecom clients, including Global Crossing and Qwest Communication International, a source at Andersen told CNNfn, confirming a Wall Street Journal report. But Andersen was offering accounting analysis and not inventing structuring techniques, the person said.

Federal regulators and Congressional investigators believe Qwest, bankrupt Global Crossing and other telecom companies used the "swaps" to improperly inflate revenue during the past two years, the Journal reported.

Swaps are a popular method used by the telecommunication's industry to structure transactions. Telecom carriers exchange capacity with each other and account for each sale as revenue and each purchase as a capital expense, which would be excluded from operating results. Regulators are specifically investigating whether Global Crossing engaged in sham swaps, or transactions that had no business purpose, the Journal said.

Andersen did compile a 48-page "white paper" which describes the firm's thinking on swap methods and explained how it approached the evolving telecom accounting field, the person said. The document provides the first glimpse into the depth of Andersen's involvement in accounting issues being reviewed by regulators at Global Crossing and Qwest, the Journal said.

The companies were looking at various ways to structure transactions and Andersen was only providing guidance as to the accounting implications of the different structures, the Andersen source said.