Kevin Spacey ordered to pay nearly $31 million to the production firm ‘House of Cards’

Kevin Spacey has been ordered by an arbitrator to pay about $31 million to Media Rights Capital, the production company behind “House of Cards,” the Netflix series in which he played for five seasons until being sacked in 2017.

MRC requested that the court “to confirm the award in its favor and enter judgment against Spacey and his loan-out and producing companies” in a petition filed Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Spacey and MRC have been at odds for years, since since the actor was fired from the production due to claims of on-set and off-set misconduct.

According to MRC’s lawsuit, an arbitrator ruled Spacey “repeatedly breached his contractual obligations” while appearing as Frank Underwood on the Emmy-winning programme in October of 2020, and that his actions “rendered him (and his affiliated entities) liable” for the millions of dollars MRC lost.

According to MRC, Spacey was suspended after a CNN investigation in 2017 in which multiple current and former employees of the “House of Cards” production team accused him of sexual harassment. Spacey, who was an executive producer on the show, was also accused of sexual assault by one person.

According to the complaint, “MRC had no knowledge of any such conduct by Spacey with any cast or staff involved with the Show.”

Actor Anthony Rapp told BuzzFeed News shortly before CNN’s revelation that the actor made a sexual approach toward him at a party when he was 14 years old in 1986. According to the petition, MRC suspended production “to address any concerns of the show’s cast and crew” in the wake of the allegations.

Following Rapp’s allegations, Spacey released a statement saying he had no recollection of the incident and apologized for what he described as “deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.”

According to the petition, MRC had to “rewrite the entire season to eliminate Spacey’s role, and to cut Season 6 from 13 to 8 episodes to fulfil delivery dates” when Spacey was fired, resulting in financial losses.

“The safety of our employees, sets and work environments is of paramount importance to MRC and why we set out to push for accountability,” MRC said in a statement following the arbitrator’s decision.