How do I stop Maven 2.x from trying to retrieve non-existent pom.xml files for dependencies every build?

Question

In my project, there are a number of dependencies that are transitively included from other dependencies that do not have pom.xml files available in any of our corporate reposit

Answer 1

Set up a Nexus Repository (or similar) and upload the artifacts there. Nexus will automatically create basic poms for artifacts you upload.