Rationale for the sluggish oxidative addition of aryl halides to Au(I)

The oxidative addition of C-sp2-Br or C-sp2-I bonds to gold( I) does not take place even under very favorable intramolecular conditions that could form five- or six-membered gold( III) metallacycles. DFT calculations reveal that although this process could be feasible thermodynamically, it is kinetically very sluggish.