Abstract 1, 2-Bis-N-[2′-(diphenylphosphanyl) benzoyl] diaminobenzene (dppbH; 1) was prepared by peptidic coupling and shown to exist, in the solid state, in the form of hydrogen- bonded dimers by single-crystal X-ray structure analysis. As expected, 1 reacts with [MCl 2 (cod)](M= Pd, Pt; cod= cyclooctadiene) to form square-planar complexes. However, in the case of palladium [PdCl 2 (dppbH)](2) is obtained, while in the case of platinum [Pt (dppb)] ...