Sweet deal that went sour winds up in court

NECCO has sued one of its distributors, charging the company stopped paying its bills and threatened to "flood the market" with cheap knock-offs of candy hearts and wafers.

In a suit filed yesterday in US District Court, the Revere-based candy maker says it wants the $378,532.44 it claims Allied International Co. owes it in unpaid invoices, plus lots of damages.

NECCO alleges that Allied stopped paying its invoices for deliveries to the Dollar General chain in October and that when NECCO asked for its money and threatened to start servicing Dollar General itself, Allied sent a message that wouldn't fit on a candy heart:

[An Allied official] threatened that, if NECCO exercised its right to withhold product and/or ship directly to Dollar General, Allied would seek to materially harm NECCO's business through, but not limited to, flooding the market with knock-off product that would compete directly with the NECCO brand. Allied made these extortionate threats in order to coerce NECCO to continue to deal through Allied.