BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Parliament approved a reform of the EU's court for competition cases on Wednesday that will increase the number of judges and shorten the time it takes to deliver judgments.
The EU General Court, one of the three bodies that make up the Court of Justice of the European Union, deals mostly with competition, state aid and trademark cases brought by companies.
EU lawmakers voted in favour of raising the number of judges by 21 to 56 by 2019 to try to cut the backlog of cases that has more than doubled in the last five years.
Judgments take two years on average to deliver, "twice as long as what is generally considered permissible", an EU document said.
EU states failed to agree on a proposal in 2011 to lift the number of judges by 12 because it would have left some countries with only one judge to represent them in the court.
They agreed later on the higher number as that gives each of the 28 EU states two magistrates in the court.