Montréal-based fashion giant Ssense laid off more than 200 people in February, just two days after its founders won a court battle to buy back the company and save it from bankruptcy proceedings.
The layoffs came two days after a Québec judge dismissed a request from Ssense’s lenders to force an asset sale.
On February 6, Ssense laid off 169 people at its Saint-Laurent warehouse and 46 at its Chabanel Street office. The company reported the layoffs to the Québec government the same day, citing economic reasons.
An Ssense spokesperson told BetaKit in an email that some of the employees who were let go had already been placed on temporary layoff.
The Feb. 6 layoffs came just two days after a Superior Court of Québec judge dismissed a request from Ssense’s lenders to force an asset sale of the embattled company. Instead, the court approved a $78-million bid from Ssense’s founders—brothers Rami, Firas, and Bassel Atallah—to buy their company back.
Ssense was founded in 2003, and by 2021 the e-commerce fashion retailer was valued at more than $5 billion. But the company’s sales fell between 2023 and 2025 as consumer luxury habits changed and interest rates rose, according to court filings.
That struggle only worsened when the US began an aggressive trade war with Canada in 2025. A major blow to Ssense was the elimination of the de minimis exemption, which had allowed shipments worth less than $800 USD to enter the US duty-free.
RELATED: Ssense founders can buy back company, court rules
In August 2025, the company filed for bankruptcy protection. The filing kicked off a legal fight with the company’s lenders, which included the Bank of Montreal, the Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank, National Bank of Canada, and JPMorgan Chase.
The Atallah brothers hoped to regain control of their company, while their lenders pushed for a liquidation, arguing that the founder-led buyback would “result in a significantly lower economic outcome.”
Court filings at the time showed Ssense had assets of $387 million against liabilities of $371 million. Those liabilities include more than $135 million in loans to its lenders, $3.2 million in vacation pay for employees, and $93 million to trade creditors, suppliers, and others.
As part of their $78-million bid to reclaim their company, the Atallah brothers told the court they planned to retain “approximately 660 regular employees and 100 occasional, on-call employees.”
Feature image courtesy Ssense.