Index: src/main/java/org/apache/maven/artifact/ant/AbstractArtifactTask.java
===================================================================
--- src/main/java/org/apache/maven/artifact/ant/AbstractArtifactTask.java	(revision 555702)
+++ src/main/java/org/apache/maven/artifact/ant/AbstractArtifactTask.java	(working copy)
@@ -48,12 +48,13 @@
 import org.codehaus.plexus.component.repository.exception.ComponentLookupException;
 import org.codehaus.plexus.embed.Embedder;
 import org.codehaus.plexus.util.IOUtil;
+import org.codehaus.plexus.util.ReaderFactory;
 import org.codehaus.plexus.util.StringUtils;
 import org.codehaus.plexus.util.xml.pull.XmlPullParserException;
 
 import java.io.File;
-import java.io.FileReader;
 import java.io.IOException;
+import java.io.Reader;
 import java.util.ArrayList;
 import java.util.Iterator;
 import java.util.List;
@@ -221,11 +222,11 @@
 
     private void loadSettings( File settingsFile )
     {
-        FileReader reader = null;
+        Reader reader = null;
         try
         {
             log( "Loading Maven settings file: " + settingsFile.getPath(), Project.MSG_VERBOSE );
-            reader = new FileReader( settingsFile );
+            reader = ReaderFactory.newXmlReader( settingsFile );
 
             SettingsXpp3Reader modelReader = new SettingsXpp3Reader();
 
Index: src/main/java/org/apache/maven/artifact/ant/Pom.java
===================================================================
--- src/main/java/org/apache/maven/artifact/ant/Pom.java	(revision 555702)
+++ src/main/java/org/apache/maven/artifact/ant/Pom.java	(working copy)
@@ -44,6 +44,7 @@
 import org.apache.tools.ant.BuildException;
 import org.apache.tools.ant.Project;
 import org.apache.tools.ant.PropertyHelper;
+import org.codehaus.plexus.util.ReaderFactory;
 import org.codehaus.plexus.util.introspection.ReflectionValueExtractor;
 import org.codehaus.plexus.util.xml.pull.XmlPullParserException;
 
@@ -51,7 +52,6 @@
 import java.io.FileInputStream;
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.InputStream;
-import java.io.InputStreamReader;
 import java.io.Reader;
 import java.util.Collections;
 import java.util.List;
@@ -165,7 +165,7 @@
         try
         {
             InputStream in = new FileInputStream( file );
-            Reader reader = new InputStreamReader( in, "UTF-8" );
+            Reader reader = ReaderFactory.newXmlReader( in );
             model = new MavenXpp3Reader().read( reader );
         }
         catch ( IOException e )
Index: pom.xml
===================================================================
--- pom.xml	(revision 555702)
+++ pom.xml	(working copy)
@@ -131,7 +131,7 @@
     <dependency>
       <groupId>org.codehaus.plexus</groupId>
       <artifactId>plexus-utils</artifactId>
-      <version>1.4.1</version>
+      <version>1.4.3-SNAPSHOT</version>
     </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>org.apache.maven</groupId>