The chamber, however, mooted a proposal for setting up of `Company Law Tribunals' (CLT) and introduction of `Stock Option Schemes' (SOS). The creation of CLT will relieve the courts of the avoidable burden of adjudicating on complex corporate litigations and the concept of stock option schemes will, indeed, send strong signal to the market that this government means business.

In a statement, the chamber said not only has the number of corporate litigations gone up, their complexity has also greatly increased challenging judicial mind and, therefore, setting up of CLT is of strategic importance.

Since mergers and demergers are going to be increasingly frequent in the future when corporate India adjusts itself to a competitive and market economy, the chamber feels it advisable to confer thejurisdiction for mergers and demergers on a specialist adjudicatory body like Company Law Tribunals for better efficacy and speed. Referring to the SOS, the chamber feels the only way IT companies in India can retain and nurture professionals is through attractive stock option schemes the way Bill Gates has done in Microsoft. For the law to keep pace with this important development, Indian company laws has to be amended to allow companies to buy their own shares from the market upto realistic limit so that the same may be offered to their employees on concessional terms. Assocham said, the corporate America has addressed the problems of takeover threats and increasing shareholder value through judicious buy-back schemes. Buy-back of shares is a powerful tool in the hands of existing managements to enhance shareholder value by cancelling the shares after the company buys them back.

Many successful companies the world over of which Microsoft seems to be the latest in the line, have adopted the strategy ofbuy-back of shares very successfully to enhance shareholder value. The Compalies Bill, 1997 has a model in Clause 69 which may be usefully adopted with some drafting reinforcement. Without this change in law, the cause for a sustained capital formation in the Indian economy may suffer, the chamber said.