On 23 January, former Tesco Finance Director Carl Rogberg was cleared of fraud and false accounting, ending a legal saga that has called into question the effectiveness of the U.K. Serious Fraud Office’s investigatory powers and raises the question as to how it can be that a company can admit fraud but no one can be found responsible for it.

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...