diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index d390adc..28db9dd 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
 
     <properties>
         <osslabz.encoding>UTF-8</osslabz.encoding>
-        <osslabz.java.version>17</osslabz.java.version>
+        <osslabz.java.version>8</osslabz.java.version>
 
         <project.build.sourceEncoding>${osslabz.encoding}</project.build.sourceEncoding>
         <project.reporting.outputEncoding>${osslabz.encoding}</project.reporting.outputEncoding>
diff --git a/src/main/java/net/osslabz/evm/abi/decoder/AbiDecoder.java b/src/main/java/net/osslabz/evm/abi/decoder/AbiDecoder.java
index 092a629..046866b 100644
--- a/src/main/java/net/osslabz/evm/abi/decoder/AbiDecoder.java
+++ b/src/main/java/net/osslabz/evm/abi/decoder/AbiDecoder.java
@@ -5,8 +5,9 @@
 
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.InputStream;
+import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
 import java.nio.file.Files;
-import java.nio.file.Path;
+import java.nio.file.Paths;
 import java.util.ArrayList;
 import java.util.Collections;
 import java.util.HashMap;
@@ -20,7 +21,7 @@ public class AbiDecoder {
     Map<String, AbiDefinition.Entry> methodSignatures = new HashMap<>();
 
     public AbiDecoder(String abiFilePath) throws IOException {
-        this.abi = AbiDefinition.fromJson(Files.readString(Path.of(abiFilePath)));
+        this.abi = AbiDefinition.fromJson(new String(Files.readAllBytes(Paths.get(abiFilePath)), StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
         init();
     }
 
@@ -111,4 +112,4 @@ public List<DecodedFunctionCall> decodeFunctionsCalls(String inputData) {
         }
         return resolvedCalls;
     }
-}
+}
\ No newline at end of file