Mr Hockey won a partial victory against Fairfax Media in July when he was awarded $200,000 in damages, after Federal Court Justice Richard White found he was defamed by the words "Treasurer for Sale" on a poster and two tweets. The judge said a large number of the people who saw the posters would not have later read the headline's context in their accompanying article online or in print.

Yet Mr Hockey was ordered to pay 85 per cent of his own legal costs, understood to be far greater than the $200,000 award. Justice White said Mr Hockey was not entitled to his costs in full because "he failed on the matters which were the real core of his claim".

The deadline for both parties to lodge an appeal to the decision was at the close of business on Wednesday afternoon. A Federal Court spokesman confirmed no documents had been filed from either side.

Justice White ruled The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times had not defamed Mr Hockey in a series of articles published last May about the operation of a Liberal party fundraising body, the North Sydney Forum, and were of "considerable public interest."

However, Justice White awarded Mr Hockey $120,000 damages for the Herald poster and $80,000 for the two tweets from The Age's Twitter account.

A spokeswoman for the Treasurer declined to comment, saying that the case was a private matter for Mr Hockey.

Mr Hockey said outside court last month after costs were determined that he did not regret taking the legal action, saying he did it to "stand up to malicious people intent on vilifying Australians who choose to serve in public office to make their country a better place".