Former Christie's general counsel Nick Deeming is joining offshore drilling company Transocean as senior vice president, GC and assistant corporate secretary.

Deeming (pictured) will take up the role on 7 February, succeeding Eric Brown, who will move to the company's Houston office to lead the company's litigation work relating to last year's BP oil spill.

Brown has held the GC role at Transocean since February 1995.

Deeming's move comes after a four-year spell as GC and company secretary at Christie's. He joined the auction house in 2007 from gas and engineering company Linde Group, where he held the role of chief legal officer.

At Linde he was responsible for appointing law firms to the company's first-ever formal panel, with DLA Piper, Hengeler Mueller and Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett all handed roles. He was replaced at Linde by Johnson & Johnson assistant general counsel, Christian Rau.

Transocean owned the Deepwater Horizon rig that was blown apart when drilling a well for BP in April last year.

The company is the world's largest offshore drilling contractor, and is headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, with more than 18,000 employees worldwide.

Prior to his role at Linde, Deeming has spent time at Anglo-French IT business Sema Group, PPP Healthcare Group, financial services company Target Group and Burmah Oil Exploration.