In 2006 Goossen et al. proposed a reaction to synthesize biaryl compounds via catalytic decarboxylative cross coupling.
The mechanism involves two overlapping cycles, one using a copper halide and the other using palladium. The decarboxylation step occurs between the substituted benzoic acid and copper halide to form the intermediate aryl copper species. The palladium initially undergoes oxidative addition from the aryl halide to form a Pd(II) aryl complex. After both of these initial steps, the substituted aryl copper undergoes trans-metalation with the palladium complex. This step forms the copper halide, which then undergoes anion exchange with the substituted benzoic acid to reform the aryl copper intermediate, continuing the catalytic cycle. The other complex formed in the trans-metalation step is a bis-aryl palladium(II), which then undergoes reductive elimination to form the desired bis-aryl species as well as the starting Pd(0) complex, thus completing the catalytic cycle.