Average length of European court proceedings continues to fall

The average length of proceedings before the Court of Justice fell to 15 months in 2016, which it said reflected its efforts to improve efficiency.

The average duration of appeals was 12.9 months. For overall proceedings, whatever their subject matter, it was 14.7 months.

The Court of Justice completed 704 cases last year, a 14 per cent increase from the year before. The number of cases pending declined slightly and stood at 872 on 31 December 2016.

Meanwhile, the number of new and pending cases before the General Court of the European Union increased.

The number of new cases increased by 17 per cent from 831 cases in 2015 to 974 in 2016, largely because of the transfer of jurisdiction at first instance to hear disputes concerning the EU civil service (which accounted for 163 cases in 2016).

The number of cases pending increased by a similar proportion, from 1,267 cases in 2015 to 1,486 cases in 2016.

The average duration of proceedings was 18.7 months, down 1.9 months compared to 2015 and down 8.2 months compared to 2013.

The number of cases referred to a bench of five judges rose to 29 in 2016, well ahead of the annual average for such referrals between 2010-15 of less than nine per year.

The court also noted an increase in intellectual property cases (up 11 per cent), the relative reduction in cases concerning restrictive measures (28 cases), the continued high number of State aid cases (76 cases), and the emergence of litigation relating to the application of prudential supervision rules in respect of credit institutions.