Talk to your forensic accountant lately?

The utter destruction of trust in the asset management business due to several true sociopaths (even beyond Madoff), like Jim Nicholson of Westgate (more on that later), has significantly increased the barriers of entry for new asset managers to ridiculous levels. Here is a quote from a white paper from Huron Consulting:

"It is becoming increasingly common for new investment managers to request an independent firm to verify the fund management track record. As an investor you should request to see a forensic audit of the returns. This audit should also include a benchmark to other investment managers’ performance as well as to the market."

This is certainly quite useful, but given what has trinspired, this scrutiny should really apply more to existing managers who do have a long track record, rather than the new managers.