Process for producing biaryl compounds by aerobic cross dehydrogenative coupling (CDC) of two arene groups comprising at least one aryl carbon-hydrogen bond, in the presence of a catalyst system comprising a palladium salt comprising at least one non-cyclopalladatable carboxylate anion and one or more non-beta-eliminatable, non-cyclopalladatable ligands comprising at least one N-donor atom, the one or more ligands having a 0.5/1-1.5/1 molar ratio of N-donor atoms relative to the Pd atoms.