We initiated our study with electron-deficient substrate 1a in the presence of CuCl 2 6e or NCS,6f however, low yield and monoselectivity of 2a were observed (Table 1, entries 1–3). Use of CaCl 2 and Cu(OTFA) 2 in acetic acid led to improvements of both yield and monoselectivity (entry 6 vs. entries 3–5), although a long reaction time was needed to reach completion. To our delight, CaCl 2 (6.0 equiv.) and Cu(OTFA) 2 (1.0 equiv.) turned out to be the best choice ...