How does policy bargaining at the German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) affect the duration of senate proceedings? This study offers a new theory of dynamic policy bargaining with incomplete information. A new simulation procedure is developed to derive hypotheses. New data on FCC proceedings since 1972 is collected and linked to the extended GESTA legislation database. The event history analysis shows that bargaining duration increases with preference uncertainty. The empirical impact of policy preference heterogeneity and other bargaining-related factors on the overall duration of FCC proceedings is not strong and systematic enough to clearly stand out from other causes
