Mercer withdraws application requesting order to cease trade Resolute Forest Products' offer to acquire Fibrek

Kendall Sinclair

MONTREAL , April 19, 2012 (press release) – AbitibiBowater Inc., doing business as Resolute Forest Products (NYSE: ABH - News) (TSX: ABH - News), today announced that Mercer International Inc. (Nasdaq: MERC - News) (TSX: MRI-U.TO - News) has withdrawn its application requesting an order to cease trade Resolute's offer to acquire Fibrek Inc. (TSX: FBK.TO - News). Mercer filed its application with the Bureau de décision et de révision (Québec) on March 29.

Yesterday the Company announced that the Supreme Court of Canada had refused to hear an appeal by Fibrek and Mercer of the Québec Court of Appeal's decision concerning Fibrek's special warrants. Accordingly, the order issued by the Bureau de décision et de révision (Québec) on February 23 is now final and non-appealable, and Fibrek's dilutive private placement of 32,320,000 special warrants to Mercer is definitively cease traded.

On April 11, Resolute acquired 60,831,859 Fibrek shares, representing approximately 46.8% of those currently outstanding, and announced that it had extended the expiry time for its offer in order to allow additional Fibrek shareholders to participate. The offer currently expires at 5:00 p.m. (Eastern time) on April 23, 2012.

Questions and requests for assistance or further information on how to tender Fibrek common shares to the offer should be directed to, and copies of the above referenced documents may be obtained by contacting, Georgeson at 1-866-598-0048 or by email at askus@georgeson.com.

Important Notice

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities or a solicitation of any vote or approval. Resolute has filed with the SEC a registration statement on Form S-4, as amended, in connection with the proposed transaction with Fibrek. INVESTORS AND SECURITY HOLDERS OF RESOLUTE AND FIBREK ARE URGED TO READ THESE DOCUMENTS, AS WELL AS ANY AMENDMENTS OR SUPPLEMENTS THERETO, AND ANY OTHER RELEVANT DOCUMENTS FILED OR TO BE FILED WITH THE SEC CAREFULLY IN THEIR ENTIRETY IF AND WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE BECAUSE THEY WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROPOSED TRANSACTION. Such documents are available free of charge through the web site maintained by the SEC at www.sec.gov, by calling the SEC at telephone number 800-SEC-0330, on SEDAR at www.sedar.com or on Resolute's website at www.resolutefp.com.


About Resolute Forest Products

Resolute Forest Products is a global leader in the forest products industry with a diverse range of products, including newsprint, commercial printing papers, market pulp and wood products. The Company owns or operates 18 pulp and paper mills and 23 wood products facilities in the United States, Canada and South Korea. Marketing its products in more than 90 countries, Resolute has third-party certified 100% of its managed woodlands to sustainable forest management standards. The shares of Resolute Forest Products, formerly doing business as AbitibiBowater, trade under the stock symbol ABH on both the New York Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Resolute and other member companies of the Forest Products Association of Canada, as well as a number of environmental organizations, are partners in the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement. The group works to identify solutions to conservation issues that meet the goal of balancing equally the three pillars of sustainability linked to human activities: environmental, social and economic. Resolute is also a member of the World Wildlife Fund's Climate Savers program, in which businesses establish ambitious targets to voluntarily reduce greenhouse gas emissions and work aggressively toward achieving them.

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