Palladium Catalyzed Alkylation with Allylic Acetates under Neutral Conditions

The palladium catalyzed allylic alkylation of soft nucleophiles represents one of the most useful organic transformations. During our recent studies in palladium-catalyzed intramolecular allylic alkylations of activated carboxamides, we noticed that small amounts of cyclization product could be intriguingly attained even in the absence of the enolizating system BSA/AcOK (cat.). In order to shed light on this intriguing result, we decided to examine simple intermolecular reactions either in the presence of BSA/AcOK cat. (method A) or under base-free conditions (method B) (Scheme 1).