What could cause a brokerage house to distribute cash that hasn't been announced on the Daily list?
Absolutely nothing. Which it why it seems likely it's just a mistake. Unfortunately, it seems the people who've called their brokers haven't asked why this payment wasn't noticed on the Daily List. It'd be interesting to know what the brokerages' answer would be.
Any naked short is responsible for paying the original owner of the stock the dividend. Fact.
Any short has to do that. But ONLY IF A DIVIDEND HAS ACTUALLY BEEN PAID. Obviously, in this case no dividend was ever declared, much less funded by the company.
And there are no naked shorts in FAGI, because there aren't threshold fails. No significant fails, no NSS.