UK-based social media app TweetDeck has been sent a letter from the UK companies registrar, warning that the company will be struck off in three months and forcibly dissolved unless it files accounts.
However, The Guardian reports that popular social media management app itself will continue as part of Twitter, which bought the company in May 2011.
Twitter now owns the intellectual property of TweetDeck and employs the staff who had been working on the product.
Sky News reports that the letter from Companies House, dated January 22, was delivered to the two American Directors that own TweetDeck; Dick Costolo, Twitter CEO and Alex Macgillivray is general counsel and head of trust and policy.
The letter stated: “The Registrar of Companies gives notice that, unless cause is shown to the contrary, at the expiration of 3 months from the above date the name of TweetDeck Ltd will be struck off the register and the company will be dissolved.”
Speaking to Sky News, Twitter declined to address the issue of continued regulatory filing problems in Britain.
Asked if it had plans to wind-down its UK subsidiary, a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement: “TweetDeck gives the Twitter experience more flexibility and allows advanced users to gain valuable insight into what’s happening at this moment on Twitter. The TweetDeck team has been steadily innovating and improving the product, and we expect to see much more of that to come.”
TweetDeck was bought from British founder Iain Dodsworth in May 2011 for a reported £25m, but has not filed any accounts to Companies House since that time.
TweetDeck missed account filing deadlines last September and again last month.
In December Sky News revealed that both of the social media giant’s British firms, TweetDeck and Twitter UK Ltd, had been fined £375 each by Companies House for separate filing oversight.
Twitter UK, which is controlled through a Dublin-based parent firm, subsequently filed its abbreviated accounts for 2011, revealing a profit of £16,500.
But TweetDeck has still not delivered accounts and has now been fined £750 and is now at heightened risk of closure and legal action.