November 23, (THEWILL) – An arbitrator last year ordered Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey to pay nearly $31 million to the studio behind Netflix’s “House of Cards” for breaching his contract over his alleged sexual misconduct, a new court filing shows.
Kevin Spacey Fowler KBE, who is an American actor, producer, and singer, starred in the hit Netflix political drama from 2013-2017 before he was accused of sexual misconduct by several young men, including a production assistant on the show.
Allegations against Spacey caused “House of Cards” studio MRC to launch an investigation, resulting in the termination of the star’s acting and producing contracts. Spacey was found to have violated the sexual harassment policy of MRC, according to the Los Angeles court petition.
MRC is an American media company owned by Eldridge Industries. Founded by Mordecai Wiczyk and Asif Satchu as an independent film studio, the company funds and produces film and television programming, and owns a group of entertainment and music industry publications.
The studio then scrapped the sixth and final season of the popular streaming show in 2017, before rewriting it without his character, President Frank Underwood, and reducing its episode number from thirteen to eight.
MRC later filed an arbitration action against Spacey for breach of contract, claiming he had cost the production tens of millions of dollars with his behavior. The arbitration proceedings were conducted out of the public eye, but it only came to light on Monday 22nd November, 2021, after the production company MRC filed a petition with the Los Angeles Superior Court, seeking to confirm the money would be delivered.
The case was decided in MRC’s favor by an arbitrator in October 2020. The arbitrator in their decision found that Spacey had repeatedly breached his contractual obligations by “certain conduct in connection with several crew members in each of the five seasons that he starred in and executive produced” the show.
Spacey and his production companies, M. Profitt Productions and Trigger Street Productions, were ordered to pay $29.5 million in damages, $1.2 million in attorneys’ fees and $235,000 in additional costs.
Spacey later appealed the arbitrator’s ruling, but it was denied this month.
