The kinetics of the reaction of [Cu(bigH)2] 2+ (bigH = biguanide) with an excess of amino acid (LH), namely glycine or e-alanine, in aqueous solution in the 7.6-9.0 pH range at different temperatures (30-40~ have been followed by stopped-flow spectrophotometry. The ligand replacement process has been found to pass through intermediate formation of a ternary complex, [Cu(bigH)L] + at the slower step, followed by rapid transformation into the binary complex, [CuL2]. The overall ligand replacement process has a ligand dependent (kl) path which is first order with respect to the incoming ligand (L-), and a ligand independent (k0) path. Under pseudo-first order conditions containing excess amino acid, the experimental observations conform to the rate law koh ~ = k o + k~K,[L]r/ ([H +] + K~), where [LIT stands for the total concentration of amino acid and Ka gives the deprotonation constant of LH. The solvent assisted dissociation (i.e. k 0 path) leads to a copper(II) mono-biguanide complex followed by rapid nucleophilic substitution; the k~ path is in agreement with an associative mechanism. The activation parameters (AH e , AS ~ ) for each step have been determined.