The European Union has announced a $1.45 billion dollar fine or roughly 4 percent of the company's annual revenue for anti-competitive practices. They cited two actions from the company that harmed consumers and companies within the EU. The first is a common practice that Intel uses worldwide including in the US of providing rebates or steep discounts to manufacturers that use Intel processors exclusively. The second was paying companies directly to delay shipment of products using competitor chips.
Intel is planning on appealing the EU decision on the basis that they failed to prove that the actions harmed consumers. This will likely push back their having to pay off the fine within 30 days. Of course, Microsoft was hit with similar rulings in 2004 and then again in February 2008.
What effect is this going to have on Intel and the computer market? Well, it might increase costs in the EU as computer manufacturers no longer receive the discounts and the company potentially raises prices to cover the costs of the fine. AMD products will likely fill in a bit more of the market for lower cost systems. The bigger effect is going to be in the US market where the federal government has announced that they will start looking into anti-competitive behavior. Intel routinely gives discounts and rebates to US computer companies that was found to be illegal in the EU. In terms of computer and processor pricing, US consumers probably won't notice any change in the near future.