Silver-Catalyzed Coupling of Unreactive Carboxylates: Synthesis of α-Fluorinated O-Aryl Esters.

α-Fluorinated aryl esters pose a challenge in synthesis via O-arylation of α-fluorinated carboxylates owing to their low reactivities. This limitation has been addressed by combining a silver catalyst with aryl(trimethoxyphenyl)iodonium tosylates to access α-fluorinated aryl esters. We envision that the catalytic system involves high-valent aryl silver species generated via the oxidation of silver(I) salt. The present method provided a synthetic protocol for various α-fluorinated aryl esters including fluorinated analogs of drug derivatives.