Quote Originally Posted by Annet

''President Putin has recently said, that Russian companies pay too big dividend, illustrating it with RAO EES and Sibneft’s examples. ''
Thanks in advance.
You could also say, "President Putin recently stated that dividends paid by Russian companies are too large. Examples of such are RAO EES and Sibneft's."

Saying 'had recently said' isn't really a correct way of speaking. Neither is 'has recently said'. 'Has' is more of a present tense form. While writing a sentence, paragraph, paper, etc, you should always stick with the past tense, if that is how you started it out. In writing classes, we have always been told not to switch between the present and past tenses, to stay in one tense.

How I worded the sentence uses the past tense only, besides "are" for Russian companies. This is because they are still continuing to do so.

I hope you understand what I mean.