According to Variety, Kevin Spacey’s attorneys are looking to throw out a $31 million arbitration that was awarded to the production company behind House of Cards, MRC, in 2020. The company argued that the actor “owed them million in lost profits” after his misconduct forced them to remove Spacey from Season 6 of the drama series, in addition to having to trim the season to eight episodes instead of 13.
Spacey’s attorneys filed an opposition to the judgment after MRC filed a petition in civil court to confirm the arbitration award, causing the ruling to become public last November. The disgraced actor’s attorneys are attempting to argue that Spacey didn’t violate MRC’s anti-harassment policy.
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“The truth is that while Spacey participated in a pervasive on-set culture that was filled with sexual innuendoes, jokes, and innocent horseplay, he never sexually harassed anyone,” the attorneys argued. “In fact, as the evidence established and the Arbitrator recognized in the Award, the few times Spacey was told that his conduct made someone feel uncomfortable or was in any way unwanted, he stopped.”
Production on House of Cards was suspended in October 2017 after actor Anthony Rapp accused Spacey of making a “sexual advance” in 1986 when Rapp was only 14. Following the allegation, CNN published a story accusing Space of “creating a toxic environment on set by making crude comments and engaging in non-consensual touching of young male staffers.”
The outlet shares that in the opposition filing, Ted Sarandos (Netflix co-CEO), sent an internal email after the story’s publication saying: “Let’s announce tomorrow that there is NO scenario in which Kevin Spacey will appear in any version of the final season of the show.” Additionally, Sarandos canceled a feature project, Gore, which Spacey starred in and was producing.
Videotaped deposition testimony was viewed by the arbitrator from the House of Cards crew members, finding that Spacey violated MRC’s sexual harassment policy “with respect to five of them.” Spacey’s attorneys are arguing that MRC’s damages “could not have been caused by the alleged misconduct that surfaced later on,” arguing that MRC scrapping two episodes was forced by Sarandos’ decision made on November 2, two days after production on House of Cards was suspended in 2017.
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Spacey’s attorneys argued: “As the Arbitrator recognized, the reduction in episodes was a foregone conclusion once Netflix dictated to Petitioners that Spacey could not and would not be a part of Season 6. But what the Arbitrator ignored is that the conduct he found to be in breach of the Agreements was not even known by Netflix at the time it made this decision. In other words, the breaches found by the Arbitrator could not have been related to Petitioners’ damages because those damages had already been caused by the time the breaching conduct was known.”
As the outlet notes, “courts tend to show near total deference to arbitration proceedings,” meaning Spacey is fighting an uphill battle. The ruling remains under seal.
