The FCPA provided the first statutory regulation of internal controls of SEC registrants, requiring that registrants maintain cost-effective systems of internal accounting control over transactions and assets. In late 1977 when the FCPA was passed, much of the business community had an unexpected and unpleasant surprise. Although many of the registrants did not participate in foreign trade, the FCPA applied to all companies filing with the SEC, regardless of their foreign trade practices: "the FCPA reaches every company that files with the SEC, everyone, whether it IS in foreign trade, or not. So a lot of companies that are totally domestic, that are not engaged in doing anything that they think of as corrupt, find themselves with new responsibilities under that Act" (Mautz 1980).