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Duties, liabilities and defences

Study the duties, liabilities and defences domain of the CIRO Director and Executive Exam and the section-level rules, workflows, and control points it tests.

Chapter 5 follows the official CIRO Director and Executive Exam syllabus element Duties, liabilities and defences. This domain carries 8 questions (~11%), so your study depth should reflect both its weighting and how often it drives scenario-based judgment on this exam.

The strongest exam answers in this chapter usually do two things well: they classify the situation correctly before choosing an action, and they connect the rule to the actual business, client, market, finance, or supervisory consequence. That is usually where weaker answers lose precision.

Section Map

  • 5.1 Strategic company objectives and positions
  • 5.2 Duties of Directors and Executives
  • 5.3 Fiduciary obligations
  • 5.4 Potential legal liabilities
  • 5.5 Securities-related criminal penalties
  • 5.6 Limitation of liability
  • 5.7 Defences available to officers and Directors

Study Priority

  • Official weighting: 8 questions (~11%)
  • Learn the rule language, but spend most of your time on scenario translation: what changes in practice, what must be documented, what must be recalculated, and what must be escalated.

In this section

Revised on Thursday, April 23, 2026