Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Julian W. Kleinbrodt is a partner in the San Francisco office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He practices in the firm’s Litigation Department and is a member of the firm’s Antitrust and Competition Practice Group.
Mr. Kleinbrodt has experience handling a wide variety of antitrust matters through trial and appeal. He has particular experience with claims involving price-fixing, monopolization, attempted monopolization, refusals to deal, tying, bundling, exclusive dealing, disparagement, market allocation and division, and no-poach provisions. For example, Mr. Kleinbrodt was part of a team that defended a major technology company in a multi-week bench trial dubbed the “Super Bowl of Antitrust.” Mr. Kleinbrodt prevailed on behalf of that same company in multiple federal appeals, including successfully arguing before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Mr. Kleinbrodt also has obtained dismissals on the pleadings of major putative antitrust class actions, won denial of class certification in sweeping nationwide cases, and prevailed at trial and after trial on behalf of multiple clients—including matters recognized by the Dailey Journal as its Top Verdicts of 2018, 2019, and 2021.
Mr. Kleinbrodt has additional experience representing clients in civil and criminal investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission. Mr. Kleinbrodt also regularly counsels clients on antitrust compliance and has authored multiple articles on competition issues.
In addition to his competition practice, Mr. Kleinbrodt is a member of the firm’s Labor & Employment Practice Group. He has represented clients across the country, with a particular focus on discrimination and class action claims. As a representative example, Mr. Kleinbrodt helped to secure denial of class certification on behalf of UPS in a putative state-wide class action of Kentucky workers alleging disability discrimination and then secured affirmance of that order on appeal, Hughes v. UPS Supply Chain Sols., Inc., 2021 WL 3008755 (Ky. Ct. App. July 16, 2021).
Mr. Kleinbrodt received his law degree magna cum laude from the University of Michigan School of Law in 2014, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif and served on the Michigan Law Review’s editorial board. Before joining the firm, Julian served as a law clerk to the Honorable Stephen V. Wilson of the United States District Court for the Central District of California. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2011 and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Former NAAG Antitrust Task Force Chair and Former Assistant Attorney General at Wisconsin Department of Justice
As former Chair of the NAAG Multistate Antitrust Task Force and as Wisconsin's Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust from 2005-2024, Gwendolyn has extensive experience litigating antitrust cases on behalf of the State of Wisconsin- including merger enforcement, cartel prosecutions. She was the lead attorney in State of Wisconsin v. Indivior, where she led 42 Attorneys General in their successful case against the manufacturer of Suboxone, resulting in a $102.5 million settlement. Gwendolyn was also on the trial team for the States' challenge to the T-Mobile/Sprint merger.
Gwendolyn was co-chair of the Pharmaceutical Industry Working Group in the National Association of Attorneys General Antitrust Task Force, and was a delegate to the “Future of Pharma Mergers” international initiative spearheaded by the FTC, and lead the Reimagining Pharma Attorney Generals Advisory Group.
Active in the American Bar Association, she is a member of the Antitrust Section Council. Gwendolyn was also the 2023 recipient of the NAAG (nationwide) Attorney General Career Staff Award, and was named as a “Woman Making History” by Wisconsin Lawyer magazine in 2024.
Director, Bureau of Consumer Protection, Federal Trade Commission
Chris Mufarrige served in the first Trump Administration as a Senior Adviser to the Director and Deputy Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, advising on enforcement, rulemaking, and supervisory exams relating to the country’s largest banks and nonbank financial institutions. Most recently, he was Commissioner Melissa Holyoak’s Chief of Staff and Attorney Adviser. He has also worked at private law firms and as an in-house lawyer. In his free time, Mufarrige taught a class on financial services and consumer protection at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.
Chair, Global Antitrust Law Practice Group, Morrison Foerster
Alex Okuliar is Co-Chair of Morrison Foerster’s Global Antitrust Law Practice Group. He is the former Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Antitrust Enforcement at the U.S. Department of Justice and a former advisor at the Federal Trade Commission.
Alex’s practice spans merger review, civil litigation, and criminal investigations. Over his twenty-five-year career, Alex has worked on nearly one thousand deals. He has deep experience guiding clients through the complex global merger clearance process and has litigated agency merger challenges through trial. He has also helped clients succeed in a wide range of federal and state cases, including class actions and private party disputes alleging price fixing, monopolization, group boycotts, market allocation, and tying. His understanding of the agency processes from the inside allows him to offer expert, timely, and practical advice to clients navigating merger and conduct investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, state Attorneys General, and foreign agencies. Alex’s work has been recognized by leading industry publications such as Chambers, The Legal 500 U.S., and Global Competition Review.
Outside of client work, Alex is a prolific thought leader and was recognized as a 2024 Top Author for Antitrust & Trade Regulation by JD Supra’s Readers’ Choice Awards. He currently serves as the co-chair of the ABA Antitrust Law Section’s Joint Conduct Committee and is the former chair of the Section’s Intellectual Property Committee and co-chair of the 2023 Antitrust Fall Forum on Artificial Intelligence. He is also a member of the Corporations, Securities & Antitrust Executive Committee of The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
Before law school, Alex co-founded and sold an online technology company. Alex received his B.S. in economics and B.A. with distinction in history from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and his J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School.
General Counsel, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commissioin
Tyler Badgley is the General Counsel at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In that role, Mr. Badgley leads the agency’s Legal Division and serves as the Commission’s chief legal advisor. He was appointed General Counsel in January 2026.
Prior to joining the CFTC, Mr. Badgley served as the Deputy General Counsel at the U.S. Department of the Treasury and was the first Executive Secretary under Secretary Scott K.H. Bessent. Mr. Badgley was previously a Senior Counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, the litigation arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. There, he focused on complex litigation and regulatory issues, particularly in connection with capital markets.
Mr. Badgley also practiced law at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, served as a Special Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, and began his legal career as a law clerk for the Honorable Edith H. Jones of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Mr. Badgley graduated Order of the Coif from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he served as Articles Editor for the Virginia Law Review. He also received his undergraduate degree in Economics and Government from the University of Virginia.
Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Julian W. Kleinbrodt is a partner in the San Francisco office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He practices in the firm’s Litigation Department and is a member of the firm’s Antitrust and Competition Practice Group.
Mr. Kleinbrodt has experience handling a wide variety of antitrust matters through trial and appeal. He has particular experience with claims involving price-fixing, monopolization, attempted monopolization, refusals to deal, tying, bundling, exclusive dealing, disparagement, market allocation and division, and no-poach provisions. For example, Mr. Kleinbrodt was part of a team that defended a major technology company in a multi-week bench trial dubbed the “Super Bowl of Antitrust.” Mr. Kleinbrodt prevailed on behalf of that same company in multiple federal appeals, including successfully arguing before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Mr. Kleinbrodt also has obtained dismissals on the pleadings of major putative antitrust class actions, won denial of class certification in sweeping nationwide cases, and prevailed at trial and after trial on behalf of multiple clients—including matters recognized by the Dailey Journal as its Top Verdicts of 2018, 2019, and 2021.
Mr. Kleinbrodt has additional experience representing clients in civil and criminal investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission. Mr. Kleinbrodt also regularly counsels clients on antitrust compliance and has authored multiple articles on competition issues.
In addition to his competition practice, Mr. Kleinbrodt is a member of the firm’s Labor & Employment Practice Group. He has represented clients across the country, with a particular focus on discrimination and class action claims. As a representative example, Mr. Kleinbrodt helped to secure denial of class certification on behalf of UPS in a putative state-wide class action of Kentucky workers alleging disability discrimination and then secured affirmance of that order on appeal, Hughes v. UPS Supply Chain Sols., Inc., 2021 WL 3008755 (Ky. Ct. App. July 16, 2021).
Mr. Kleinbrodt received his law degree magna cum laude from the University of Michigan School of Law in 2014, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif and served on the Michigan Law Review’s editorial board. Before joining the firm, Julian served as a law clerk to the Honorable Stephen V. Wilson of the United States District Court for the Central District of California. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2011 and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Former NAAG Antitrust Task Force Chair and Former Assistant Attorney General at Wisconsin Department of Justice
As former Chair of the NAAG Multistate Antitrust Task Force and as Wisconsin's Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust from 2005-2024, Gwendolyn has extensive experience litigating antitrust cases on behalf of the State of Wisconsin- including merger enforcement, cartel prosecutions. She was the lead attorney in State of Wisconsin v. Indivior, where she led 42 Attorneys General in their successful case against the manufacturer of Suboxone, resulting in a $102.5 million settlement. Gwendolyn was also on the trial team for the States' challenge to the T-Mobile/Sprint merger.
Gwendolyn was co-chair of the Pharmaceutical Industry Working Group in the National Association of Attorneys General Antitrust Task Force, and was a delegate to the “Future of Pharma Mergers” international initiative spearheaded by the FTC, and lead the Reimagining Pharma Attorney Generals Advisory Group.
Active in the American Bar Association, she is a member of the Antitrust Section Council. Gwendolyn was also the 2023 recipient of the NAAG (nationwide) Attorney General Career Staff Award, and was named as a “Woman Making History” by Wisconsin Lawyer magazine in 2024.
Director, Bureau of Consumer Protection, Federal Trade Commission
Chris Mufarrige served in the first Trump Administration as a Senior Adviser to the Director and Deputy Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, advising on enforcement, rulemaking, and supervisory exams relating to the country’s largest banks and nonbank financial institutions. Most recently, he was Commissioner Melissa Holyoak’s Chief of Staff and Attorney Adviser. He has also worked at private law firms and as an in-house lawyer. In his free time, Mufarrige taught a class on financial services and consumer protection at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.
Chair, Global Antitrust Law Practice Group, Morrison Foerster
Alex Okuliar is Co-Chair of Morrison Foerster’s Global Antitrust Law Practice Group. He is the former Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Antitrust Enforcement at the U.S. Department of Justice and a former advisor at the Federal Trade Commission.
Alex’s practice spans merger review, civil litigation, and criminal investigations. Over his twenty-five-year career, Alex has worked on nearly one thousand deals. He has deep experience guiding clients through the complex global merger clearance process and has litigated agency merger challenges through trial. He has also helped clients succeed in a wide range of federal and state cases, including class actions and private party disputes alleging price fixing, monopolization, group boycotts, market allocation, and tying. His understanding of the agency processes from the inside allows him to offer expert, timely, and practical advice to clients navigating merger and conduct investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, state Attorneys General, and foreign agencies. Alex’s work has been recognized by leading industry publications such as Chambers, The Legal 500 U.S., and Global Competition Review.
Outside of client work, Alex is a prolific thought leader and was recognized as a 2024 Top Author for Antitrust & Trade Regulation by JD Supra’s Readers’ Choice Awards. He currently serves as the co-chair of the ABA Antitrust Law Section’s Joint Conduct Committee and is the former chair of the Section’s Intellectual Property Committee and co-chair of the 2023 Antitrust Fall Forum on Artificial Intelligence. He is also a member of the Corporations, Securities & Antitrust Executive Committee of The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.
Before law school, Alex co-founded and sold an online technology company. Alex received his B.S. in economics and B.A. with distinction in history from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and his J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School.
General Counsel, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commissioin
Tyler Badgley is the General Counsel at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In that role, Mr. Badgley leads the agency’s Legal Division and serves as the Commission’s chief legal advisor. He was appointed General Counsel in January 2026.
Prior to joining the CFTC, Mr. Badgley served as the Deputy General Counsel at the U.S. Department of the Treasury and was the first Executive Secretary under Secretary Scott K.H. Bessent. Mr. Badgley was previously a Senior Counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, the litigation arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. There, he focused on complex litigation and regulatory issues, particularly in connection with capital markets.
Mr. Badgley also practiced law at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, served as a Special Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, and began his legal career as a law clerk for the Honorable Edith H. Jones of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Mr. Badgley graduated Order of the Coif from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he served as Articles Editor for the Virginia Law Review. He also received his undergraduate degree in Economics and Government from the University of Virginia.
FTC’s Sweeping Non-Compete Ban: Summary, States’ Views, and Litigation Challenges
Julian W. Kleinbrodt, Gwendolyn J. Lindsay Cooley, Christopher Mufarrige, Alexander P. Okuliar, Tyler S. Badgley
On April 23, 2024, the FTC voted 3-2 to adopt a final rule banning the use...
FTC’s Sweeping Non-Compete Ban: Summary, States’ Views, and Litigation Challenges
Julian W. Kleinbrodt, Gwendolyn J. Lindsay Cooley, Christopher Mufarrige, Alexander P. Okuliar, Tyler S. Badgley
On April 23, 2024, the FTC voted 3-2 to adopt a final rule banning the use...