Dedicated to Dr. G¸nther Ohloff on the occasion of his 80th anniversary By means of 1 H-NOESY-and Raman-spectroscopic analyses, we experimentally demonstrated the presence of the equatorial NÀMe conformer of King×s sultam 4b in solution, resulting from a rapid equilibrium. As a consequence, the value of the N lone-pair anomeric stabilization should be revised to 1.5 ± 1.6 kcal/mol. Independently from the N tilting, natural bond orbital (NBO)-comparative analyses suggest that the S d* orbitals do not appear as primordial and stereospecific acceptors for the N lone pair. Second, the fivemembered-ring sultams do not seem to be particularly well-stabilized by the SÀC s* orbital in the N-substituted pseudo-axial conformation, as opposed to an idealized anti-periplanar situation for the six-membered-ring analogues. In this latter case, the other anti-periplanar CÀC s* and C(1')ÀH/C(2') s*orbitals are as important, if not more, when compared to the SÀC s* participation. In the pseudo-equatorial conformation, g-sultams particularly benefit from the N lone-pair hyperconjugation with the anti-periplanar SÀO 1 s* and C(2)ÀH/C or C(1')ÀH/C s* orbitals. This is also the case for d-sultams when the steric requirement of the N-substituent exceeds 1.6 kcal/mol. When both axial and equatorial conformations are sterically too exacting, the N-atom is prone to sp 2 hybridization or/and conformational changes (i.e., 12c). In that case also, the mode of stereoelectronic stabilization differs from g-to d-sultams.Introduction. ± Based on semi-empirical calculations, we proposed in [1] that the steric origin of the diastereoselectivity imparted to N-a,b-enoyl derivatives by g-sultam auxiliaries of type 1 2 ) and 2 [6], as rationalized by Kim and Curran [7], is modulated by the stereoelectronic influence of the N lone pair (lp). We stressed that this additional effect, which is, under unchelating conditions, either matching or mismatching the steric approach, depending on the syn-or anti-s-cis conformations of the N-a,b-enoyl side chain, results from a general anomeric influence [8] 3 ) of the N lp, through the sp 2 CO, on the LUMO p-facial electronic distribution of the reactive centers. The N lp is itself orientated by stabilization with the anti-periplanar SÀO 1 s* orbital. We later