A key mechanistic evidence for the involvement of a Co IV intermediate was provided by the attempted asymmetric synthesis using a chiral CoSalen catalyst (Figure ). Despite the low enantiomeric excess, this observed catalyst controlled stereoselectivity strongly supports the Co IV hypothesis. Nonetheless, we observed an interesting correlation between the anode material and the selectivity. Tentatively, this might be attributable to the more facile oxidation of free radicals on RVC compared to platinum. Unfortunately, substantial optimizations did not provide satisfying ee's.