diff --git a/plat/arm/board/fvp/fvp_io_storage.c b/plat/arm/board/fvp/fvp_io_storage.c
index 9c4c1d5..109d321 100644
--- a/plat/arm/board/fvp/fvp_io_storage.c
+++ b/plat/arm/board/fvp/fvp_io_storage.c
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 /*
- * Copyright (c) 2014-2018, ARM Limited and Contributors. All rights reserved.
+ * Copyright (c) 2014-2020, ARM Limited and Contributors. All rights reserved.
  *
  * SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-3-Clause
  */
@@ -120,18 +120,22 @@
 {
 	int io_result;
 
-	arm_io_setup();
+	io_result = arm_io_setup();
+	if (io_result < 0) {
+		panic();
+	}
 
 	/* Register the additional IO devices on this platform */
 	io_result = register_io_dev_sh(&sh_dev_con);
-	assert(io_result == 0);
+	if (io_result < 0) {
+		panic();
+	}
 
 	/* Open connections to devices and cache the handles */
 	io_result = io_dev_open(sh_dev_con, (uintptr_t)NULL, &sh_dev_handle);
-	assert(io_result == 0);
-
-	/* Ignore improbable errors in release builds */
-	(void)io_result;
+	if (io_result < 0) {
+		panic();
+	}
 }
 
 /*