In December 1996, while charting across Europe, "Say You'll Be There" became the focus of a controversy when the Israeli soldier Idit Shechtman accused the group of copying her song Bo Aylai (Come to me), a highly similar song released two years earlier in Israel. Shechtman hired lawyers and threatened to sue. A spokesman of the group later declared: "Where there's a hit, there's a writ. There's always someone who crawls out of the woodwork claiming to have written a hit song. We look forward to seeing her in court."