diff --git a/project/Dependencies.scala b/project/Dependencies.scala
index f6df5b53..9eb657e4 100644
--- a/project/Dependencies.scala
+++ b/project/Dependencies.scala
@@ -40,7 +40,11 @@ object Dependencies {
 
   val cachecontrol = Seq("com.typesafe.play" %% "cachecontrol" % "2.3.2")
 
-  val asyncHttpClient = Seq("org.asynchttpclient" % "async-http-client" % "2.12.3")
+  val asyncHttpClient = Seq(
+    ("org.asynchttpclient" % "async-http-client" % "2.12.3") // 2.12.x comes with outdated netty-reactive-streams, so we ...
+      .exclude("com.typesafe.netty", "netty-reactive-streams"), // ... exclude it and pull in ...
+    "com.typesafe.netty" % "netty-reactive-streams" % "2.0.13", // ... a newer version ourselves (ahc v3 will drop that dependency)
+  )
 
   val akkaVersion = "2.6.21"