Common use of Fair and adequate representation Clause in Contracts

Fair and adequate representation. (a) All named Plaintiffs are or have been beneficiaries of the trust obligations herein involved, are or have been owners of IIM accounts, and like all owners of IIM accounts are unable to know whether their account balances are what they should have been in the absence of the breaches of trust herein complained of. Additionally, each has experienced the mismanagement of their IIM moneys, trust lands and resources and the impact of the breaches of trust set forth above. (b) Plaintiff Xxxxxxx Xxxxxx, the lead representative Plaintiff, is a recognized leader in Indian affairs with substantial experience both in financial management and in Indian matters generally, and is project director of the Individual Indian Moneys Trust Correction, Recovery, and Capacity-Building Project of Blackfeet Reservation Development Fund, Inc., a project that is directly supportive of the present effort and is further devoted to development and improvement of Indian capacity to manage funds and achieve self-sufficiency. Xx. Xxxxxx is a recipient of the 1997 “Genius Grant” from the Xxxx X. and Xxxxxxxxx X. XxxXxxxxx Foundation’s Fellowship Program. In 2005, she received a “Cultural Freedom Fellowship” from the Xxxxxx Foundation, an award that cited her persistence in bringing to light the government’s “more than a century of government malfeasance and dishonesty.” In 2007, she was one of ten people given the AARP Impact Award (for making the world a better place). She is a graduate of Great Falls Business College and attended Montana State University. She has two honorary doctorates, one from Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana, and another from Xxxxxxx College, Winter Park, Florida. Her professional background is in accounting. She was one of the lead organizers of Native American Bank, N.A., the only national bank located on a reservation that is owned by Indian tribes. She serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of the bank and is active in its management, and with her husband she manages a ranch producing cattle, wheat, and barley. She served for 13 years as Treasurer of the Blackfeet Indian Tribe, and has served as Controller of the tribe. She has held various positions with the Native American Finance Officer Association. She has served as Chair of the Intertribal Monitoring Association on Indian Trust Funds. She is a member of the board of the Montana Community Foundation; is a member of the executive board of Women and Foundation/Corporate Philanthropy; and is Chair of the National Rural Development and Finance Corporation. She served the first Chair of the Special Trustee Advisory Board, appointed under the 1994 Act, 25 U.S.C. § 4046. (c) Plaintiff Xxxxx Xxxxxxxx is a beneficiary of an IIM account, the owner of interest in lands held in trust by the United States and is an enrolled member of the Mescalero Apache Tribe. She resides in Apache, Oklahoma. Xx. Xxxxxxxx has been in the field of Indian Education since 1991 and currently serves as an Assistant to the Principal at the Riverside Indian School located in Anadarko, Oklahoma. Xx Xxxxxxxx is a graduate of Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma, where she earned a degree in Business Administration, with a minor in Art, in 1986. (d) Plaintiff Xxxxxx Xxxxxxx is an enrolled member of the Lac du Flambeau Chippewa Tribe (Wisconsin), of which he has served as tribal chairman since October 1992. He is a recognized leader in Indian affairs. He also currently is the president of the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council, an association of the Indian tribal governments in Wisconsin. He has been the national spokesman for the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, and was elected by nine Indian tribes to serve as chairman of the Xxxxxx Task Force, organized to protect Indian hunting, fishing and gathering rights in a three-state area. From 1960 to 1963 he served in the United States armed forces. After receiving an honorable discharge, he returned to the Lac du Flambeau Reservation and worked as a tribal police officer and later as a tribal fish and game warden. Since then he has been self-employed, operating several successful businesses. From 1983 to 1989 he served two terms as his Tribe's first tribal judge, having attended the National Judicial College at the University of Nevada, Reno. In addition to his extensive tribal government experience, he has served in several state government positions, including his 1992 election as Vilas County supervisor, State Tourism Committee, and Vilas County Mining and Solid Waste Committee. (e) Plaintiff Xxxxx Xxxxx XxXxxx is an enrolled member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, of which he has served as tribal councilman and tribal chairman during various periods beginning in 1971. He is a recognized leader in Indian affairs. He is a past board member and chairman of the Nebraska Indian Inter-Tribal Development Corporation, a statewide consortium of Nebraska Indian tribes dedicated to facilitating individual and tribal economic self-sufficiency. He is also the former chairman of the Nebraska Indian Commission, and since 1971 has served as a board member of Americans for Indian Opportunity. In the 1970s he led the organizational effort which culminated in the establishment of Nebraska Indian Community College, of which he served as chief administrator in the formative years. He is a past vice-chairman of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, the national association of the twenty- eight tribal colleges in the United States. Since 1992, he has served as the intergovernmental liaison specialist of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, and concurrently is the director of the Winnebago Bison Project, a tribal program to xxxxxx and restore a sustainable buffalo herd on the Winnebago Reservation. He holds A.A. and B.S. degrees in education. (f) Class Counsel are experienced in the substantive and procedural law involved in the case. They include Xxxxxx X. Xxxxxxx, lead counsel, an experienced banking lawyer; Xxxxxxxx Xxxx, an experienced big-case and class-action litigator; Xxxxxxx Xxxxxx, Xxxxx Xxxxx, Xxxxx Xxxxxx, Xxxx Xxxxxxx, and Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxx, , each Partners or Counsel at Xxxxxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx LLP with extensive litigation experience; and Xxxxxx Xxxxxxx, an associate in the Washington office of Xxxxxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx LLP. (g) In addition, the services of Xxxxxxxx Xxxxxx, a certified public accountant who had been associated with the accounting firm of Price Waterhouse LLP, has been retained full time in this litigation. Xx. Xxxxxx has extensive experience in evidence analysis and expert testimony in banking and fiduciary matters, with expertise in such fields as banking and fiduciary activities; data gathering and evaluation; internal controls, accounting practices, systems, and standards in government; information systems (particularly government), financial systems, and distributed systems; and modeling and statistical analysis.