Well, seeing as FortuneCity's UK management doesn't seem inclined to return our phone calls, we have had to rely on more surreptitious methods to find out what is going on.

About 25 staff have been made redundant, including production, support, content provision and managers. They're all getting one month's pay and some of their quarterly bonus. Subsequently, there will be no original content on the UK site from now on - i.e. mostly static pages and site support is non existent.

The UK closing is especially sad since the company started as a British operation but has been swamped by the Americans in recent years following several big US-based deals. The company became far more US-focussed, causing some difficulties with UK managers who felt sidelined.

This sadly led to the UK being weedled out of the grand corporate strategies and following a big redesign and redevelopment at the start of this year, the UK site had been reduced to little more than a support service. Inevitably this led to the job losses.

Staff were informed yesterday, but we have yet to hear any formal announcement. So there you have it. ®

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