Hiroki Morita (born 1962) is a civil-law scholar specializing in contract law and the law of obligations. He graduated from the University of Tokyo’s Faculty of Law in 1984 and became a research assistant there. He joined Tohoku University as an associate professor in 1987, became a professor in 1999, and moved to the University of Tokyo’s Graduate Schools for Law and Politics in October 2000. Beginning with the foundations of contract and contractual liability, he extended his research to financial transactions, intellectual-property licensing, liability on the internet, electronic money, and the dematerialization of securities. He also participated in legislative work concerning electronic signatures and limitations on internet service providers’ liability, examining how established private-law concepts relate to new technologies and institutions. His 2002 Japanese-language monograph “Keiyaku Sekinin no Kiseki Kozo” investigated the grounds and structure of liability for breach of contract. It addressed the distinction between obligations to achieve a result and obligations to exercise appropriate care, liability for the acts of others, and liability for defects in sales. “Saikenho Kaisei o Fukameru: Minpo no Kiso Riron no Shinka no Tame ni” (2013) explored issues in the proposed reform of the law of obligations. Rather than simply describing draft provisions, it examined the underlying interpretations and theories concerning responsibility for nonperformance, allocation of risk, transfers of a landlord’s position, and limitation periods for bank-deposit claims. After the reform, he supervised “Case de Kangaeru Saikenho Kaisei,” a collaborative study guide that used concrete cases to investigate the application of the amended rules. Its topics included mistake, agency, guarantees, assignments of claims, set-off, and contractual nonconformity.
