Request to backport following from JDK 8 : 7041125: LDAP API does not catch malformed filters that contain two operands for the ! operator http://bugs.sun.com/view_bug.do?bug_id=7041125 Identical changeset from JDK 8 : http://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk8/tl/jdk/rev/e88093d75e36 Builds and tests fine. regards, Sean.