An unusual reduction of the aryl-substituted 3-hydroxyacrylic acid ester
1 by BH
3 results in the propenoic acid ethyl ester
3. We were able to prove the presence of an intermediate
2 containing a cyclic O-BH
2 ← O
![](http://pubs.acs.org/images/entities/dbd_2.gif)
C< moiety in
2 by using
1H−
11B and
1H−
13C{
11B} NMR correlation experiments.