Learn the regulator, enforcement, and disciplinary framework that opens the Series 14 Compliance Officer Exam.
The first Series 14 chapter covers the enforcement environment in which the compliance officer works. The exam starts here because a compliance officer has to know which regulators and self-regulatory organizations can investigate, discipline, restrict, or expel the firm and its personnel. That background shapes how the rest of the rule set is applied.
Read this chapter as the authority-and-enforcement layer. The point is not to memorize agency names in isolation. It is to understand what disciplinary power exists, how proceedings move, and why compliance issues have to be escalated before they become formal enforcement problems.
| Skill | Exam use |
|---|---|
| Identify the regulator or forum | Recognize whether the fact pattern points to SEC, FINRA, exchange, state, or disciplinary-process authority. |
| Understand enforcement consequences | Connect investigation, discipline, restriction, suspension, expulsion, or reporting facts to the compliance response. |
| Keep agency facts proportional | Earn the small function efficiently without overstudying it relative to operations and supervision. |
Use these section lessons as the main reading path for this Series 14 function. They connect compliance-officer judgment to exact tested controls, escalation points, records, and remediation evidence.
| Section | Lesson |
|---|---|
| 1.1 | Disciplinary Capabilities and Procedures |