Nordic telco Telia’s protracted bid for Bonnier Broadcasting, owner of TV channels and ancillary rights in Sweden and Finland, is set to drag on for the rest of 2019 now that the European Commission has opened an in-depth phase 2 investigation into the proposed $1 billion acquisition. This happens when the Commission, the EU’s executive body, is unhappy with representations made by the merging parties under phase 1 designed to eliminate concerns over reduced competition. Phase 2 is then invoked with greater information gathering, including companies’ internal documents, more extensive economic data, detailed questionnaires to market participants, and often site visits, taking at least several months usually. In this case, the Commission expressed continuing concerns that video distribution competitors in…