The FTC’s Western Competition Group (WCG) bridges a critical gap between federal and state-level antitrust enforcement by coordinating antitrust merger and conduct investigations with Western States’ Attorneys General in a range of industries. The WCG leverages the expertise of attorneys from the FTC’s San Francisco and Seattle Regional Offices.

Erik is an experienced antitrust attorney and litigator based in San Francisco.  After graduating from New York University School of Law, Erik started his career at Davis Polk & Wardwell in Washington, DC. In 2019, he joined the FTC’s Mergers II Division and contributed significantly to several investigations, including Altria/Juul, Nvidia/Arm, Meta/Within, Axon/VieVu, and Qualcomm/Autotalks.  In 2024, Erik transferred to the WCG where he led the Planned Companies/Guardian Services no-poach investigations and IBM/HashiCorp merger investigation.  In December 2024, Erik was appointed Acting Assistant Regional Director of the WCG, in which position he filed the Commission’s recent Robinson-Patman Act lawsuit against PepsiCo and has been responsible for a number of non-public investigations. Erik also serves as a JAG Attorney with the Army Reserve.

Jacklin (Jackie) Chou Lem is a Partner and accomplished antitrust lawyer based in our San Francisco office. She had a distinguished career at the U.S. Department of Justice, where her portfolio spanned the breadth of civil and criminal antitrust enforcement. She advises clients on merger clearance, cartel investigations, and high-stakes litigation, bringing deep government insight and a practical, strategic approach to managing antitrust risk.

Before entering private practice, Jackie served as the Civil Chief of the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division’s San Francisco Office. Under her leadership, she formalized and expanded the office’s civil program, launching a wide range of civil antitrust litigation, merger reviews, and investigations of anticompetitive conduct. She directed office-wide strategic planning, supervised attorney recruitment and development, and regularly advised senior DOJ leadership, including the Assistant Attorney General.

During her 17-year tenure at the DOJ, Jackie also served as Assistant Chief and lead Trial Attorney. She led criminal and civil investigations and prosecutions involving global price-fixing cartels, domestic bid-rigging conspiracies, public procurement fraud, monopolization, unlawful restraints, and anticompetitive mergers. She pioneered breakthrough cases charging defendants with criminal monopolization offenses and was a founding member of the Procurement Collusion Strike Force. In addition to her casework, she played a key role in agency-wide initiatives, including revising the Antitrust Division’s leniency policy and frequently asked questions.

Jackie’s litigation experience includes some of the Antitrust Division’s most high-profile matters—from challenging major technology firms in merger and monopolization cases to prosecuting complex international conspiracies. As a Special Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of California, she also tried multi-defendant white-collar fraud cases before federal juries. For her leadership and impact, Jackie was awarded the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award, one of the Department’s highest honors, in recognition of her work as lead prosecutor of a price-fixing cartel carried out for over fifteen years in multiple countries and continents across the globe.  

A frequent speaker at national and international antitrust conferences, she has trained enforcement officials globally through her work with the International Competition Network and other organizations. Jackie began her legal career as a law clerk to the Hon. Marilyn Hall Patel in the Northern District of California, and she joined the Department of Justice through the prestigious Attorney General’s Honors Program.

Jackie is a graduate, with distinction, of Stanford Law School and holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Leslie Wulff is the Chief of the San Francisco Office of the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division. Leslie has been with the Antitrust Division for over 9 years and was previously a line prosecutor and most recently Assistant Chief. Prior to joining the Antitrust Division, Leslie worked at the San Francisco Office of a large international law firm and clerked for The Honorable R. Gary Klausner of the Central District of California.