CLONE -20 or more exclusions from a Maven 2 transitive dependency results in build error

When building a Maven 2 project with 20 or more exclusions from a dependency, that project builds correctly.

For example,

<dependency>
<groupId>org.springmodules</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-modules-cache</artifactId>
<version>0.8a</version>
<exclusions>
<exclusion>
<groupId>gigaspaces</groupId>
<artifactId>gigaspaces-ce</artifactId>
</exclusion>
... many more exclusions

build correctly for a project.

When this first project is a dependency of another project, the second project's build fails with an error similar to the following:

[ERROR] BUILD ERROR
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Error building POM (may not be this project's POM).

Project ID: com.pearson.rase:test-management-gateway-client

Reason: Failed to build model from file '/home/bbuilder/.m2/repository/com/pearson/rase/test-management-gateway-client/1.0.0/test-management-gateway-client-1.0.0.pom'.
Error: 'no more data available - expected end tags </exclusion></exclusions></dependency></dependencies></project> to close start tag <exclusion> from line 106 and start tag <exclusions> from line 28 and start tag <dependency> from line 24 and start tag <dependencies> from line 22 and start tag <project> from line 1, parser stopped on END_TAG seen ...<groupId>opensymphony</groupId>\n ... @108:11' for project com.pearson.rase:test-management-gateway-client

This error disappears once the number of exclusions in the first project's dependency is reduced to 19 or less.