Arm of the tribe
The legal test for whether a lender is genuinely part of the tribe and entitled to its immunity.
What "arm of the tribe" means
Courts use a multi-factor "arm of the tribe" test to decide whether a lending business truly shares in a tribe's sovereign immunity — weighing things like how the entity was created, who controls it, who profits, and the tribe's intent. Passing the test means the lender keeps immunity; failing it exposes the loans to state law.
In Williams v. Big Picture Loans (4th Cir., 2019), the court found Big Picture was a genuine arm of the Lac Vieux Desert Band and upheld immunity — one of the few pro-lender rulings in the field.