Reductive acetylation of ketoximes to give the corresponding acyl enamides can be achieved by using 1–3 mol% of [RuCl2 (p-cymene)] 2 as the catalyst in the presence of KI as the reducing agent in high yields. This procedure has been applied to synthesize N-[1-(1, 3- benzodioxol-5-yl)-1-butenyl] acetamide (6), which is the intermediate for the synthesis of DMP 777, an inhibitor of leukocyte elastase.