Montreal-based online fashion retailer Ssense plans to file for bankruptcy protection as its primary lender attempts to force a sale of the company, a Ssense spokesperson told CBC News in an email. According to the company, its primary lender has placed Ssense under Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) protection in order to launch a sale. Ssense says that its lender made the move without the company's consent. Lenders include Bank of Montreal, National Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank) and JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Laurentian University has confirmed it is finalizing a deal on Aug. 28 to sell several properties to the province for $53.5 million, CBC.ca reported. Laurentian will use proceeds from the sale to pay creditors, following an insolvency in 2021. "The completion of the sale of real estate assets to the Province is a critical step in enabling Laurentian University to complete the requirements of the CCAA [Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act] process," Laurentian president and vice-chancellor Lynn Wells said in a statement.

Canada’s top capital markets regulator has filed applications to push David and Natasha Sharpe, the husband-and-wife team who once ran private lender Bridging Finance Inc., into bankruptcy after they failed to pay millions of dollars in sanctions, Bloomberg News reported. The Ontario Securities Commission said on Wednesday that it filed to appoint a trustee over the couple’s assets.

Mexico's government is set to raise tariffs on Chinese imports, including cars, textiles and plastics, as part of its 2026 budget proposal next month, Bloomberg News reported. The tariff increases may also target other Asian countries, according to sources.

Confidence in the eurozone’s economic outlook fell back as sluggish growth weighed on sentiment, with little hope of a major rebound ahead, surveys of households and business showed, the Wall Street Journal reported. The European Commission said Thursday that its economic sentiment indicator for the currency area edged down to 95.2 this month from 95.7 in July, thwarting economists’ expectations of a slight uptick in sentiment. Consumer confidence fell back, as did sentiment in industry and construction.

The European Commission proposed on Thursday removing tariffs on imported U.S. industrial goods, part of a trade agreement with the United States that should result in retroactive cuts to U.S. tariffs on European cars, Reuters reported. The proposals are the first EU step in enacting the framework agreement between U.S. President Donald Trump and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on July 27, which saw the EU accept a broad 15% tariff to avoid a damaging trade war.

U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs on Chinese imports are biting into the income of some American retail-focused companies, with at least two already in bankruptcy court and others forecasting significant losses, the South China Morning Post reported. Exporters were shouldering a relatively small share of duties on goods sent from China to the US, leaving American firms to absorb the remaining costs or pass them on to consumers, according to minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee's meeting on July 29-30, citing the views of its participants.

The Panama Canal Authority plans to sell rights to two, yet-to-be-built ports to bring in more operators and limit the influence of any one group, specifically Geneva-based Mediterranean Shipping Co. and China’s state-run Cosco, the Wall Street Journal reported. The head of the authority, Ricaurte Vásquez Morales, said he wants to bring in more competition now that MSC and China’s largest shipping company have emerged as significant players in a clash between the U.S. and China over who controls two existing Panama Canal ports. In March, U.S.