Colinchi, I posed this question recently to my derivatives...

Colinchi, I posed this question recently to my derivatives issuer when Forge went under. I didn't hold any Forge shares at the time, just wanted to understand the situation.

The answer is complicated. Basically whether shorting directly by borrowing and selling shares or using deriatives, you can't close out the transaction. You need to wait for the ASX to make a determination on their residual value which is fair to all parties on different sides of the transaction. This has taken months in past cases depending on the circumstances of the company failure.

Bottom line is, if a company is at risk of VA, then you want to be out of all positions, whether short or long. That's partly why I don't think there's any significant shorting any more on Lynas, maybe still some closing out but its no longer a factor in the share price.