Metal complexes-catalyzed hydrolysis and alcoholysis of organic substrates such as alkenyl esters, alkenyl ethers, and azlactones (oxazol-5(4H)-ones) are described. These reactions were applied for kineticresolution of chiral compounds and high selectivities were achieved with vinylethers of 2-substituted cyclohexanols, 1,1′-bi-2-naphthols, 1,1′-bi-2-phenols, and 4,4-disubstituted azlactones. Oxidative
Kinetic resolution of 4-alkyl-2-aryl-5-oxo-4,5-dihydrooxazole-4-carboxylic acid esters (azlactones 1) were achieved by copper-DTBM-SEGPHOS catalyzed alcoholysis reaction with good selectivity (12 examples). Variation of ee of unreacted substrates 1 and products 2 with conversion was found to follow the theoretical line of zeroth-order kinetic resolution, for which the selectivity profiles and graphical