We first investigated the catalytic activities of a diverse range of metal complexes for the transformation of benzaldoxime. Although some metal catalysts showed measurable activities for conversion of the aldoxime to the corresponding nitrile under certain conditions, subsequent in situ catalytic hydrolysis of nitrile adduct turned out to be more difficult to perform. 7 For example, when benzaldoxime was treated with [RuCl 2 (p-cymene)] 2 catalyst (5 mol%) in DMF over 4 h at 150 °C, ...