WASHINGTON—International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva on Wednesday distanced herself and the fund from a data-rigging scandal involving her former employer, the World Bank, but said she did not expect the saga to hamper decades of close collaboration between the two institutions. Georgieva, who was cleared of wrongdoing in the matter by the IMF’s executive board on Monday, had sharply criticized a report prepared by law firm WilmerHale for the World Bank’s board, and the decision to make its findings public. The law firm’s investigative report alleged that Georgieva and other senior World Bank officials applied “undue pressure” on bank staff to make changes to boost China’s ranking in the bank’s 2018 business climate report. Georgieva vehemently denied the accusations, and she and her lawyer faulted WilmerHale for not telling her she was a subject of the probe. Some of her backers, including Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz called the report …