In tomcat's svn history I see that looked method was added to InstanceManager (tomcat-api) when Back-porting JSR-356:
+ public Object newInstance(Class<?> clazz) + throws IllegalAccessException, InvocationTargetException, NamingException, + InstantiationException; + However, I solved the problem by adding explicitly <dependency><groupId>org.apache.tomcat</groupId><artifactId>tomcat-api</artifactId><version>7.0.47</version><scope>runtime</scope></dependency> into <pluginManagement> <dependencies> I hope that this topic can be at least useful for others. Thanks, Marek