Given the rough ride that Barclays Bank has had in the past month over CEO Jes Staley’s fines and public smackdown for trying to out a whistleblower, the bank may have relished some good news this week when a U.K. court threw out criminal charges relating to its decade-old fundraising deals in Qatar.

Neil Hodge is a freelance business journalist and photographer based in Nottingham, United Kingdom. He writes on insurance and risk management, corporate governance, internal audit, compliance, and legal...