Firm Cofounder Fired After Signing Return-to-Office Mandate and Claiming It Only Applied to Employees
You would think the boss who writes the rule always gets to follow his own path. Not this time. William Nieporte helped run an $8 billion investment firm and signed off on a strict office mandate himself. Months later, his own company fired him for ignoring that very rule. He says the rule was never meant for him at all. So who was it really for?
Three Old Friends Built a Firm, Then One Got Pushed Out
William Nieporte cofounded Bramshill Investments with two high school friends, Stephen Selver and Art DeGaetano. The three men ran the firm together for years. In 2022, Selver and DeGaetano fired Nieporte from the company he helped build. A termination letter said he had “willfully and deliberately failed to report to in-person work.” That single sentence would launch a legal fight lasting years. What pushed things this far?
The Man Who Wrote the Rule Lived Nowhere Near an Office
Bramshill’s return-to-office order told staff to work five days a week from one of three cities. Those cities were New York, Naples, Florida, and Newport Beach, California. Nieporte, however, was living in San Ramon, California, hundreds of miles from any office. He had signed the mandate anyway, alongside his two partners. That distance would soon become the center of the entire dispute.
He Says Owners Don’t Have to Follow Their Own Company Rules
Nieporte’s legal team argues the office rule was written for workers, not for owners like him. His attorney, Matthew Press of Press Koral LLP, told The Wall Street Journal that skipping the mandate wasn’t grounds for firing him. Press said the policy “did not validly apply to Mr. Nieporte, who was an owner and manager of the company.” That argument sits at the heart of his entire case.
A 12% Stake May Be the Real Reason Behind the Firing
Money, not attendance, may be the true story here. Nieporte claims his firing was really an attempt to seize his 12 percent ownership stake in Bramshill. Company rules force any shareholder fired for cause to sell their shares. Selver held 40 percent of the firm, and DeGaetano held 48 percent. Losing his stake would shift significant value toward his two former partners. Was that the actual goal all along?
A Lowball Offer Came Before the Firing, Not After
This conflict did not start with the office mandate. Nieporte says his partners approved his move to San Ramon back in 2017, with no objections at the time. Years later, in 2021, they allegedly offered him a “lowball” deal to buy out his stake in the firm. He says he turned it down. Not long after that, the return-to-office rule suddenly appeared, with a strict deadline attached.
A Sharp Email Set the Deadline That Sealed His Fate
The return-to-office deadline arrived on July 5, 2022, and Nieporte missed it. His partner, Art DeGaetano, wrote him a pointed message afterward. “We have both junior and senior employees commuting over one hour each way to work, and yet you feel this policy doesn’t apply to you,” DeGaetano wrote. That message framed Nieporte’s absence as unfair treatment of ordinary staff. Weeks later, he was gone.
He Filed a $30 Million Lawsuit Four Years After Losing His Job
This fight did not end with his firing. In May, Nieporte filed a federal lawsuit against ADP Totalsource, the human resources company involved in his termination, seeking at least $30 million. He is also in arbitration with Bramshill, its parent company Ironmen, Selver, and DeGaetano. Bramshill has called his claims fabricated, saying his firing was due to dereliction of duty. Neither side is backing down.
His Fight Reflects a Much Bigger Battle Playing Out Nationwide
Nieporte’s case landed in the middle of a much larger national argument. Companies like Amazon have ordered workers back to offices five days a week. Executives such as JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon have openly criticized remote work for years. Yet the numbers tell a different story than the headlines suggest. Nearly 22 percent of American workers still worked remotely at least part time in 2025, according to the Minneapolis Fed.
The Rule He Signed May End Up Costing Him Everything
Go back to that signature on the mandate he never planned to follow himself. Nieporte now lives in Nevada, working remotely for a different company entirely. His old firm insists he broke a rule meant for everyone, including him. His lawyers insist ownership should have placed him above it. As courts and arbitrators sort through the wreckage, one signature may end up defining his entire career.