The Pac-12 has filed a federal lawsuit against the Mountain West over $43 million in fines for “poaching.”

The Pac-12 is suing the Mountain West over what it calls an illegal and unenforceable “poaching penalty” that would cost Reconstruction Conference More than $40 million to add Boise State, Fresno State, Colorado State and San Diego State, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court.

The antitrust complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, seeking a declaratory judgment from the judge.

“The action challenges the anti-competitive and illegal poaching penalty imposed by the MWC on the Pac-12 to prevent competition among its member schools in college athletics,” the lawsuit states.

The Mountain West District charges more than $17 million in exit fees to schools that leave the district. The fees can increase depending on how much advance notice the school gives, and they are not the subject of the lawsuit.

The Pac-12 is challenging poaching charges that were put into this season’s Mountain West football scheduling agreement with Oregon State and Washington State, The only current members of the Pac-12 this season.

Fees start at $10 million and increase by $500,000 for each additional school the Pac-12 Conference adds from the Mountain West. With four schools already on board, the total is $43 million.

Mountain West Commissioner Gloria Nevarez said in a statement that the Pac-12 Conference approved the fees and recognized that they are necessary for its conference members.

“This provision was put in place to protect the Mountain West Conference from exactly this scenario. It was clear to us and everyone across the country that the remaining members of the Pac-12 would attempt to rebuild,” she said. “The fees involved were included to ensure the future viability of the Mountain West and to allow our member institutions to continue to provide critical resources and opportunities to our student-athletes. At no point during the contracting process did the Pac-12 claim that the agreement it freely entered into violated any laws.”

The Pac-12 also extended invitations Monday to Mountain West schools like Utah State and UNLV.

Utah State was accepted, according to the lawsuit, even though neither the school nor the conference made a formal announcement.

Adding Utah State and the University of Nevada Las Vegas would cost the Pac-12 another $24.5 million and leave the Mountain West with just six members, two short of the number required to be recognized by the NCAA and the College Football Playoffs.

The Pac-12 alleges in the lawsuit that the “exorbitant” exit fees imposed by the Mountain West actually compensate for the loss of departing members.

The Pac-12 says the poaching penalty has nothing to do with the intent of the deal between Oregon State, Washington State and the Mountain West, which would have provided those schools with six football opponents this year in exchange for a $14 million payment to the league.

“It exceeds the terms of the scheduling agreement, does not affect the schedule in any way, and does not in any way affect the amount of football played, games scheduled, or anything related to the scheduling of games in the 2024-25 season,” the lawsuit states.

“Instead, the poaching penalty only serves to increase MWC profits by locking in member schools and preventing them from leaving for a Pac-12 competitor.”

Scheduling deal It has not been renewed for next year.

Oregon State and Washington State are entering their first year of a two-year NCAA grace period during which they will run the Pac-12 tournament as a two-team conference.

By 2026, the Pac-12 will need at least eight members to be recognized as a conference by the NCAA and CFP.

The first phase of the Pac-12 expansion began two weeks ago when the addition of Boise State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Colorado State, four of the traditionally most successful football programs in the Mountain West, was announced.

The Pac-12 then targeted a group of American Athletic Conference schools, but were held off by Memphis, UTSA, Tulane and South Florida.

With the Pac-12 returning to Mountain West schools, the Mountain West has been trying to secure its remaining eight members through a rights-granting agreement that ties schools together through the conference via television rights.

Some Mountain West schools signed a memorandum of understanding and returned it to the conference on Monday, but when Utah did not, it allowed others to reconsider.

Now, with the Pac-12 filing a lawsuit against the Mountain West, it’s unclear if either conference will be able to move forward.

___

Follow Ralph D. Russo on https://twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP

___

Get poll alerts and AP Top 25 player updates all season long. Sign up here.AP College Football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football