Duties, conflicts, market integrity, and scenario judgment for the Level I ethics topic area.
Ethics at Level I is a scenario-reading discipline. Strong answers depend on identifying the real duty, the party owed that duty, and the fact pattern that turns a harmless detail into a violation, a required disclosure, or a required refusal to act.
That is why this chapter is grouped into a few substantive lessons instead of one page per reading or one page per substandard. The official curriculum still defines the coverage boundary, but the public structure is organized around how candidates actually solve ethics questions: frame the decision properly, classify the standard family, apply Standards I-VII in scenarios, and then handle GIPS and integrated ethics application.
| Lesson | Official module coverage boundary | What to focus on |
|---|---|---|
| Ethics, Trust, and the Decision Framework | Ethics and Trust in the Investment Profession | Why the profession depends on trust, how ethical standards exceed legal minimums, and how to slow down into a usable decision framework. |
| Code, Standards, and Professional Conduct Framework | Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct | The role of the Professional Conduct Program, the Code versus the Standards, and how the seven Standards organize recurring duty problems. |
| Guidance for Standards I-VII in Scenarios | Guidance for Standards I-VII | How Level I ethics vignettes signal the primary standard, what prevention procedures matter, and how to decide whether conduct conforms or violates. |
| GIPS and Ethics Application | Introduction to the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS); Ethics Application | GIPS purpose, composites, discretion, verification, and full-case ethics judgment across policies, reporting, and conduct. |