Kevin Spacey has been ordered to pay $31million (£23m) to the studio that made Netflix series, House of Cards, for breach of contract following sexual allegations made against him.

A ruling was made behind closed doors last year, but became public on Monday after lawyers for the studio, MRC, filed a court petition to confirm the award.

The Oscar-winning actor, 62, starred as politician Frank Underwood for five seasons on the hit show, but was written out in the sixth and final season following the allegations which he has strongly denied.

MRC said it lost millions of dollars as a result, because it had already started working on the next season.

Arbitrators found that Spacey had violated his contract’s demands for professional behaviour by “engaging certain conduct in connection with several crew members” in each of the five seasons he was involved in.

Spacey tried to counter it by saying that the production company had wrongfully terminated his contract and breached obligations to “pay or play” under the agreement.

He further argued that the allegations against him were not a major factor in the studio’s losses.

The arbitration award was upheld following a confidential appeal which was denied this month.

Spacey and his companies, M. Profitt Productions and Trigger Street Productions, must now pay $29.5million (£22m) in damages plus $1.2million (£895,000) in attorneys’ fees and $235,000 (£175,000) in costs to MRC.

A statement from MRC read: “The safety of our employees, sets and work environments is of paramount importance to MRC and why we set out to push for accountability.”