House of Cards star Kevin Spacey has been ordered to pay producer MRC $31 million in arbitration to cover the revenue loss caused by the actor’s exit from the Netflix series. The order comes after the finding that Spacey breached his contract due to violating the company’s harassment policy.
Spacey was fired from the series’s sixth and final season after eight employees spoke out on allegations of harassment. MRC canceled the season and severed their relationship with Spacey. The company filed a petition to confirm arbitration with the Los Angeles Superior Court Monday after it was held in confidential appeal.
According to Variety, Spacey and his team were ordered to pay $29.5 million in damages, $1.2 million in attorney’s fees, and $235,000 in costs.
Allegations against Spacey came amongst a wave of women coming forward following the Harvey Weinstein scandal in 2017. The House of Cards star was first alleged of creating a toxic environment by making alleged rude comments and allegedly touching male staff non-consensually. MRC said that they did not have any knowledge of Spacey’s behavior before CNN reported the story in 2017.
Spacey was immediately fired from House of Cards, and his character, Frank Underwood, was written out of the show. The two episodes that were in production during Spacey’s termination were scrapped, and what was planned to be a 13-episode season turned into eight episodes.
MRC sought arbitration from Spacey to cover the production costs of Spacey’s firing and starting the final season over. Spacey filed a counterclaim, saying that the company wrongfully terminated his contract and breached obligations to “pay or play” under the agreement.
“With one exception, the Arbitrator found the third party witnesses to be credible, and found the allegations against Spacey to be true,” according to the petition, via Variety. “The Arbitrator found that Spacey’s conduct constituted a material breach of his acting and executive producing agreements with MRC, and that his breaches excused MRC’s obligations to pay him any further compensation in connection with the show.”
The petition also stated that Spacey’s behaviors allegedly cost the company tens of millions which he and his companies were liable for.
MRC issued a statement, according to Variety. “The safety of our employees, sets and work environments is of paramount importance to MRC and why we set out to push for accountability,” they said, via Variety. Spacey’s attorney declined to comment.
The full petition document is available to read in Variety‘s report.