Haloarene-guided cascade arylation of cyclic vinylogous esters under palladium catalysis.

A method is presented for the synthesis of diaryl cyclic vinylogous esters. The sequence of C(sp3)-H arylation events is programed under the differentiated reactivity of the aryl halides, and the optimized reaction system is effectively diverted from producing dihomo-arylated products. The site selectivity of the second arylation is notably modulated by the substitution pattern of the substrates.