From the article: Soon after, an order was placed by another of the 27 plans to buy the order for the shorted shares. That open buy order — essentially, a prom

From the article: Soon after, an order was placed by another of the 27 plans to buy the order for the shorted shares. That open buy order — essentially, a promise to purchase shares that the other plan still didn’t own — was proof enough for SKAT to approve a refund. Once the refund was issued, the buy order was canceled. So they weren't actually buying the shares at all, or receiving the dividend.