When Bell was originally teamed with Boeing on the V-280, Boeing presumed that the split would be the same as the V-22, and they would get the flight control systems lead. By this date, Nick had already left Bell. But in his short time with Bell he had completely turned around the flight control system group capability, he had also reenergized the belief Bell could do it alone. From what I’ve been told, some of the flight controls engineers at Bell cheered and danced when they were informed they would get the opportunity to design the V-280 flight controls without Boeing.
Actually, the desired work split by Boeing on V280 also included the entirety of the rotors as well. There was a laughable public mentality at the time of the SB1 Sikorsky-Boeing teaming announcement that it meant "Boeing had decided that the compound coax was a better platform than tiltrotor". The reality was that Bell was astute enough (that time, versus Osprey) to break it off and avoid the trap of allowing Boeing control over rotors, which not only would open the door to a Boeing-only tiltrotor in the future, but also run the risk of them completely dropping the ball just like they did with Sikorsky on Defiant.
In the rotorcraft industry, there has always been much rejoicing across all disciplines whenever engineers are instructed not to team with Boeing.