NullPointerException during deployment of a CXF webservice end point in JBoss EAP6

Issue

• While trying to deploy a web service end point, the following exception is thrown:

ERROR [org.jboss.msc.service.fail] (MSC service thread 1-1) MSC000001: Failed to start service jboss.deployment.unit."foo.war".INSTALL: org.jboss.msc.service.StartException in service jboss.deployment.unit."foo.war".INSTALL: JBAS018733: Failed to process phase INSTALL of deployment "foo.war"
    at org.jboss.as.server.deployment.DeploymentUnitPhaseService.start(DeploymentUnitPhaseService.java:123) [jboss-as-server-7.1.2.Final-redhat-1.jar:7.1.2.Final-redhat-1]
    at org.jboss.msc.service.ServiceControllerImpl$StartTask.startService(ServiceControllerImpl.java:1811) [jboss-msc-1.0.2.GA-redhat-1.jar:1.0.2.GA-redhat-1]
....
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
    at org.jboss.wsf.stack.cxf.metadata.MetadataBuilder.createDDEndpoint(MetadataBuilder.java:225)
    at org.jboss.wsf.stack.cxf.metadata.MetadataBuilder.build(MetadataBuilder.java:79)
    at org.jboss.wsf.stack.cxf.deployment.aspect.DescriptorDeploymentAspect.generateMetadataFromDeployment(DescriptorDeploymentAspect.java:153)
    at org.jboss.wsf.stack.cxf.deployment.aspect.DescriptorDeploymentAspect.start(DescriptorDeploymentAspect.java:81)
    at org.jboss.as.webservices.deployers.AspectDeploymentProcessor.deploy(AspectDeploymentProcessor.java:74)
...

• The WEB-INF/jboss-deployment-structure.xml has the following modules defined:

<jboss-deployment-structure xmlns="urn:jboss:deployment-structure:1.0">
    <deployment>
        <exclusions>
            <module name="javaee.api" />
            <module name="org.apache.log4j" />
        </exclusions>
        <dependencies>
            <module name="com.liferay.portal" />
            <module name="javax.mail.api" />
            <module name="org.jboss.modules" />
        </dependencies>
    </deployment>
</jboss-deployment-structure>