Concord Management and Consulting LLC is a Russian company owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin and the parent of his restaurant and catering businesses. According to the February 16, 2018 indictment brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Concord was the IRA’s principal source of funding and controlled its budget, routing money for the Internet Research Agency’s influence operation against the 2016 U.S. election through affiliated companies, including Concord Catering, under the umbrella of a funding operation called Project Lakhta.

The U.S. Treasury sanctioned Concord Management and Consulting in June 2017 and again on March 15, 2018 for its support of the IRA. Unlike the individual Russian defendants, Concord hired U.S. lawyers and contested the case in federal court, seeking extensive discovery of U.S. evidence. In March 2020 the Justice Department moved to dismiss the charges against Concord and Concord Catering, arguing that a trial would risk exposing sensitive law enforcement information while the company had no presence in the United States to punish. The charges against the individual defendants and the IRA itself remained.

Sources

• U.S. Department of Justice. United States v. Internet Research Agency LLC et al., indictment. February 16, 2018.
• U.S. Department of the Treasury. “Treasury Sanctions Russian Cyber Actors for Interference with the 2016 U.S. Elections and Malicious Cyber-Attacks.” Press release, March 15, 2018.
• Mueller, Robert S., III. Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election, Vol. I. U.S. Department of Justice, March 2019.

Summary entry. A fuller, document-based profile is in preparation.